To date, the study of societal change in social and political psychology has been dominated by an intergroup relations research agenda. But in addition to intergroup dynamics, there are other major pathways to societal change and emancipation, which are almost never systematically considered in psychological research. The distribution of technologies (e.g., "ICT for development") or money (e.g., microcredits) are among the supposed drivers of societal change. Many development aid projects are anchored in expectations about the effect that such instruments have on anticipated primary goals and the emancipation of particular groups (such as women). In the current paper, we begin by reviewing theories in the field of social change. Social psychological theories mainly address the conditions under which social change stimulated by intergroup dynamics is likely to occur, while other mainly historical and sociological research has focused on the role of different technologies as drivers of social change in history. Next, we review recent research focusing on the anticipated primary goals and (often) unanticipated psychological and cultural changes resulting from development aid interventions, presenting two examples of such interventions in Ethiopia and Sri Lanka in more detail. We suggest that (1) development aid projects can instigate profound psychological and cultural change and (2) that the pathways to such changes are markedly different from those traditionally examined in the literature. At the political level, we reflect on the unanticipated side effects of development aid. We conclude with some recommendations for practice following from the research described.


We develop a model of manager-employee relationships where employees care more for their manager when they are more convinced that their manager cares for them. Managers can signal their altruistic feelings towards their employees in two ways: by offering a generous wage and by giving attention. Contrary to the traditional gift-exchange hypothesis, we show that altruistic managers may offer lower wages and nevertheless build up better social-exchange relationships with their employees than egoistic managers do. In such equilibria, a low wage signals to employees that the manager has something else to offer — namely, a lot of attention — which will induce the employee to stay at the firm and work hard. Our predictions are well in line with some recent empirical findings about gift exchange in the field.


Over the past decades, China has been undertaking extremely rapid industrialization and urbanization. Along with economic boom, many adverse environmental effects are emerging. Among them, it is of great significance for the country to deal with air pollution such as PM2.5. As a compound pollutant, PM2.5 is composed of many significant pollutants (e.g., SO 2 , NO x , and TSP) that are closely related with many industrial activities in China. Till now, there have been few studies exploring and managing relationship between PM2.5 emission reduction and the associated industrial park that is a park to multiple industries such as power plants and manufacturing industries. This research introduced a supply-chain mechanism to systematically evaluate PM2.5 emission of industrial parks. To tackle the problems of PM2.5 emission reduction and industrial park management, an optimization model was proposed. Then the proposed model was applied into a pulp and paper industrial park to support the formulation of optimized strategies that can help fulfill the national plan. The results indicated that the reduction amounts of SO 2 , NO x , and TSP should be 126, 247, and 146 t per year in the manufacturing plant (i.e., a pulp mill in this research), and the reduction amounts of SO 2 , NO x , and TSP should be 291, 31, and 61 t per year in paper-making mill. Therefore, the proposed model was useful for management of air pollution as a decision tool in the level of a industrial park.


Water, Tilapia zilli, Synodontis nigrita, Clarias angillaris, Ipomoe cearri and Eichornnia natans samples collected from Ase-creek for a period covering ten months (January – October, 2006). The aforementioned samples were analysed for heavy metals such as selenium, arsenic, chromium, lead, molybdenum, bismuth and cadmium using atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS) of model Pye Unicam 2900. The results obtained revealed that there were metal variations and elevated concentrations were obtained except for arsenic which was below detection limit in fish samples. These elevated metal concentrations determined indicate a deep pollution of the Ase-creek. Metal concentrations in the fish species and aquatic plants in this study are good indicators for environmental monitoring in Nigerian rivers. Oil explorations, industries and anthropogenic wastes were traceable to the elevated metal concentrations in the Ase-creek. KEYWORDS : Ase-creek, heavy metal pollution, metal variation, environmental monitoring, bioaccumulation.


BACKGROUND
Azathioprine (AZA) is used during pregnancy by women with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), other autoimmune disorders, malignancy, and organ transplantation. Previous studies have demonstrated potential risks.

METHODS
The Swedish Medical Birth Register was used to identify 476 women who reported the use of AZA in early pregnancy. The effect of AZA exposure on pregnancy outcomes was studied after adjustment for maternal characteristics that could act as confounders.

RESULTS
The most common indication for AZA use was IBD. The rate of congenital malformations was 6.2% in the AZA group and 4.7% among all infants born (adjusted OR: 1.41, 95% CI: 0.98-2.04). An association between early pregnancy AZA exposure and ventricular/atrial septal defects was found (adjusted OR: 3.18, 95% CI: 1.45-6.04). Exposed infants were also more likely to be preterm, to weigh <2500 gm, and to be small for gestational age compared to all infants born. This effect remained for preterm birth and low birth weight when infants of women with IBD but without AZA exposure were used as a comparison group. A trend toward an increased risk of congenital malformations was found among infants of women with IBD using AZA compared to women with IBD not using AZA (adjusted OR: 1.42, 95% CI: 0.93-2.18).

CONCLUSIONS
Infants exposed to AZA in early pregnancy may be at a moderately increased risk of congenital malformations, specifically ventricular/atrial septal defects. There is also an increased risk of growth restriction and preterm delivery. These associations may be confounded by the severity of maternal illness.


It has been reported that Nigella sativa oil possesses hepatoprotective effects in some models of liver toxicity. However, it is N. sativa seeds that are used in the treatment of liver ailments in folk medicine rather than its oil. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the aqueous suspension of N. sativa on carbon tetrachloride (CCL4)-induced liver damage. Aqueous suspension of the seeds was given orally at two dose levels (250 mg/kg and 500 mg/kg) for five days. CCL4 (250 microl/kg intraperitoneally / day in olive oil) was given to the experimental group on days 4 and 5, while the control group was only treated with the vehicles. Animals treated with CCL4 showed remarkable centrilobular fatty changes and moderate inflammatory infiltrate in the form of neutrophil and mononuclear cells when compared to the controls. This effect was significantly decreased in animals pretreated with N. sativa. Histopathological or biochemical changes were not evident following administration of N. sativa alone. Serum levels of aspartic transaminase (AST), and L-alanine aminotransferase (ALT) were slightly decreased while lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) was significantly increased in animals treated with CCL4 when compared to the control group. LDH was restored to normal but ALT and AST levels were increased in animals pretreated with N. sativa. In conclusion, N. sativa seeds appeared to be safe and possibly protective against CCL4-induced hepatotoxicity. However, further studies may still be needed prior to supporting its use in folk medicine for hepatic diseases.


Sewage water is used for irrigation in vegetable farms near Nayawas and Mandrella by–pass. This water affects the physico-chemical properties of soil and deteriorate the soil fertility. Therefore, 13 soil samples were collected from the vegetable farms. The various physico-chemical parameters such as EC, TDS, SAR, alkalinity, sodium and potassium were determined. The results show that these parameters are beyond the limits of Indian standards. Therefore, the study of parameters are important for the utilization and proper management of soils in agronomy.


Abstract According to some scholars in evolutionary economic geography (EEG), the role of (territory-specific) institutions is relatively small for explaining where a new industry emerges and grows as firms develop routines in a path-dependent and idiosyncratic manner. This article evaluates this assertion by studying the evolution of the biogas industry in the region of Scania in Southern Sweden. The biogas is predominantly used as a fuel in the regional transport system and is considered as a crucial means to achieve environmental goals in the region. Recently, regional public policy has been actively promoting this biogas industry, aiming for cluster development. Drawing on literature from EEG and technological innovation systems, this article seeks to unpack the evolutionary process that has led to the emergence of this industry. In particular, it studies to what extent territory-specific institutions have been crucial in that respect. The analysis is case-based, drawing predominantly on in-depth interviews with key stakeholders and firms in the industry. By doing so, the paper seeks to make a contribution to our understanding of cluster development, considering the interplay between technology, industry dynamics and institutions.


The pelB and pelE genes from Erwinia chrysanthemi EC16, which encode different pectate lyase enzymes, were sequenced and expressed at a high level in Escherichia coli. The genes possessed little similarity to each other in 5' signal regions, signal peptide sequences, coding sequences, or 3' noncoding regions. Both genes contained their own promoters as well as sequences 3' to the coding regions with considerable secondary structure which may function as rho-independent transcriptional termination signals. High-level expression plasmids were constructed with both genes, which led to 20% or more of E. coli cellular protein. The pectate lyases were secreted efficiently to the periplasm and, to a lesser extent, the culture medium. The mature proteins in E. coli periplasmic fractions were obtained in milligram amounts and high purity with a single-column affinity purification method. E. coli cells which produced high amounts of the pelE protein macerated potato tuber tissue as efficiently as E. chrysanthemi EC16 cells but cells producing high amounts of the pelB protein were less effective. Thus, the pelE gene product is an important pathogenicity factor which solely enables E. coli to cause a soft-rot disease on potato tuber tissue under laboratory conditions.


The intrinsic excitability of spinal motoneurons is mediated in part by the presence of persistent inward currents (PICs), which amplify synaptic input and promote self-sustained firing. Studies using animal models have shown that PICs are greater in extensor motoneurons over flexor motoneurons, but this difference has not yet been demonstrated in humans. The primary objective of this study was to determine whether a similar difference exists in humans by recording from motor units in biceps and triceps brachii during isometric contractions. We compared firing rate profiles of pairs of motor units, in which the firing rate of the lower-threshold "control" unit was used as an indicator of common drive to the higher-threshold "test" unit. The estimated contribution of the PIC was calculated as the difference in firing rate of the control unit at recruitment versus derecruitment of the test unit, a value known as the delta-F (ΔF). We found that ΔF values were significantly higher in triceps brachii (5.4 ± 0.9 imp/s) compared with biceps brachii (3.0 ± 1.4 imp/s; P < 0.001). This difference was still present even after controlling for saturation in firing rate of the control unit, rate modulation of the control unit, and differences in recruitment time between test and control units, which are known to contribute to ΔF variability. We conclude that human elbow flexor and extensor motor units exhibit differences in intrinsic excitability, contributing to different neural motor control strategies between muscle groups.


The field of photonic crystals is a rapidly developing branch of modern optics. Photonic crystals are believed to be the cornerstone for a wide range of new photonic devices controlling the confinement and propagation of light. These artificial structures have greatly benefited from far-reaching analogies with semiconductor crystals. Following the successful path taken by science and technology in that field, one can expect that novel functionality will emerge by assembling photonic crystals with dissimilar properties into heterostructures. The main theme of this thesis is to explore novel methods for transverse mode control in arrays of vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) using the concept of photonic crystal heterestructures. Starting from the new confinement effects of photonic envelope functions offered by these structures, the extension to multiple heterostructure domains was made in this thesis work. Insight into the complex modal behaviour of such structures was obtained with the aid of model calculations. A theoretical framework, formally identical to coupled mode theory, was devised to enable efficient modelling of arbitrary heterostructure designs. Active photonic crystals were implemented using metal-patterned VCSEL-arrays. For optical characterization of the devices, a novel aperture generation technique using a spatial light modulator in the diffractive mode was employed. This technique was utilized to study the degree of spatial coherence via Young's interference experiments, which yields detailed information on the coupling between VCSELs across the lattice. Two closely separated domains of photonic crystal heterostructure, or islands, were investigated in detail, theoretically and experimentally. Coupling of the photonic envelope wavefunctions confined to each island is brought about by tunneling across the heterobarrier separating them. This splits the lowest loss mode of a single photonic island into bonding and anti-bonding modes. Numerical simulations predict the bonding state to have the lowest modal losses. The experimental observations of lasing supermodes confirm this prediction, evidencing island coupling in the bonding state of the coupled envelope functions. Device applications making use of the two-island system would require dynamic control of the inter-island coupling strength. Investigations of different methods to deliberately break or induce coupling were carried out. One possibility to modify the properties of the active photonic crystal is to locally alter the gain. In this way, it is possible to compensate for inadvertent variations between the islands, which allows for controlled mode switching in the transversal plane. The gain variations can be introduced by controlling the current injected into each island. To this end, photonic crystal heterostructures including two separate electrical contacts were fabricated. Control of the injected currents allows bringing the photonic islands in and out of mutual coherence. The demonstrated switching of the transverse lasing mode in the near-field is accompanied by corresponding variations in the far-field pattern and the emission wavelength. Proper adjustment of the driving currents also allows steering of the beam of the ensemble of coupled lasers. As a natural extension to the two-island system, devices including multiple photonic islands were fabricated. This provides a means for scaling up the size of the lasing mode by controlled coupling between the individual domains. Such structures point towards more advanced photonic crystal "superlattices", possibly candidates for the realization


The amount of software in consumer electronics has grown from thousands to millions of lines of source code over the past decade. Up to a million of these products are manufactured each month for a successful mobile phone or television. Development organizations must meet two challenging requirements at the same time: be predictable to meet market windows and provide nearly fault-free software. Software reliability is the probability of failure-free operation for a specified period of time in a specified environment. The process of finding and removing faults to improve the software reliability can be described by a mathematical relationship called a software reliability growth model (SRGM). Our goal is to assess the practical application of SRGMs during integration and test and compare them with other estimation methods. We empirically validated SRGMs' usability in a software development environment. During final test phases for three embedded software projects, software reliability growth models predicted remaining faults in the software, supporting management's decisions.


An 8 in. diam stainless steel black liquor feed pipe to a carbon steel digester had failed within one year of service. The material was type 316 molybdenum-containing austenitic stainless steel. The service environment was alkaline black liquor at 175 deg C (350 deg F). The pipe had developed cracks on the inside surface coincident with an external support gusset. The cracks initiated at wide corrosion grooves. The early stages were corrosion-assisted fatigue cracks. The cracks initiated at the corrosion grooves and propagated as transgranular SCC with characteristic branching. Evaluation indicated the cracks were localized in an area of high cyclic stresses as a consequence of geometrical constraints on the piping and unsupported cantilever loads. No cracks were found elsewhere in the pipe. In the absence of highly localized service stresses (exceeding yield strength of the material), the corrosion grooving and subsequent SCC would not have occurred in this service environment. The pipe support system was modified with additional gussets to reduce the magnitude of cyclic stresses at the critical areas. The modification was apparently successful.


Background Simulated physiology (SimPhys) is a novel way of teaching basic sciences to early-years medical students. A high-fidelity SimManTM is used to simulate a clinical scenario and the underlying physiology is then discussed in real time as the scenario proceeds. This study evaluates the effect of SimPhys on learning. There is literature to support the use of simulation for pre-clinical students1 however these programmes are often focussed on clinical reasoning rather than basic sciences. It was hoped that SimPhys might improve understanding and affect the approach students took to learning. Marton and Saljo2 described 'surface' and 'deep' approaches to learning, and Ramsden3 suggests that most students learn superficially and forget information rapidly. There is, however, a wealth of evidence that deep learning approaches are associated with better learning outcomes, and that they can be encouraged in a variety of ways4 Methodology A mixed methods approach was used to understand the opinions of medical students at a large UK medical school. Students from three settings (a first year student selected module (n = 11), a first year lecture (n = 147) and fourth year student sessions (n = 87) participated in the research. Predominantly qualitative data was collected from questionnaires and focus groups, and this was scrutinised by iterative thematic analysis. Results The emergent themes were about learning, the session itself and the place of SimPhys within the course. Students felt that SimPhys enhanced learning in several ways including providing context, making material more interesting, consolidating knowledge and increasing motivation. The majority of students believed SimPhys to be better suited for revision, consolidation and linking topics, rather than for learning new information. Conclusions These findings suggest that SimPhys is popular with students and may encourage a deeper approach to learning. SimPhys also allows experiential learning for early-years students without affecting patient safety. References Gordon JA, Hayden EM, Ahmed RA, Pawlowski JB, Khoury KN, Oriol NE. Early bedside care during preclinical medical education: can technology-enhanced patient simulation advance the Flexnerian ideal? . Acad Med 2010;85(2):370–377 Marton F, Saljo R, 1997, "Approaches to Learning," In The Experience of Learning, 2nd ed. F. Marton, D. Hounsell, & N. Entwistle, eds., Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, pp. 39-58 Ramsden P. 2003. Learning to Teach in Higher Education, 2nd ed. Oxford, RoutledgeFalmer Entwistle N, Ramsden P. 1983. Understanding Student Learning London, Croom Helm


OBJECTIVE
This study was designed to test the results of Valsalva's maneuver and limb compression against the standing-cuff inflation-deflation method for the detection of venous valvular reflux.

DESIGN
The study was conducted in 67 patients (134 extremities) who had an episode of deep vein thrombosis. An ultrasonic duplex scanner was used to evaluate two methods of testing for reflux. The most commonly used methods are Valsalva's maneuver and limb compression, both of which can raise the venous pressure and promote reflux. With the cuff method, the patient is studied in the standing position. The cuffs are segmentally placed (thigh to foot) with reflux encouraged when the inflated cuff is suddenly deflated.

SETTING
The patients were a part of a long-term natural history study of acute deep vein thrombosis and its effects on venous valve function.

OUTCOME MEASURES
Valvular reflux was documented by the appearance of retrograde flow in the vein when the normal transvalvular pressure gradient was reversed.

RESULTS
Both limb compression and Valsalva's maneuver can elicit reflux, but the maneuvers are difficult to standardize and come up with meaningful results. With the cuff inflation-deflation method, the time to valve closure was less than 0.5 seconds in 95% of normal subjects. The results were easier to quantify and worked well for all segments of the venous systems--superficial and deep.

CONCLUSIONS
The cuff inflation-deflation method provides more uniform quantifiable results for detecting reflux in the superficial and deep veins of the leg.


There are occasions where the value of a property is required when the building is not in a state comparable with market expectation. The key indicators that may lead to that value are expected to be selected by a process of comparative analysis of recent transactions in property of a similar size in the same locality. But the influence of condition upon value has received little consideration in valuation theory. The assessment of damages in litigation within the United Kingdom or the resolution of liability for lease end liability in England and Wales seeks to rely upon a valuation of a property in its disrepaired state. There is no accepted methodology for achieving such a valuation. It is rare to have access to sufficient comparable evidence of transactions in property in a comparable condition that is also comparable in all other respects. As a result, and in part due to the poor quality of valuation evidence supplied in litigation to date (Crosby & Murdoch 2002; Hutchison, et.al.1996), the British Courts now lean toward accepting that the costs of the outstanding work (incorporated within a calculation) should be the preferred route of achieving the value in the diminished state. This paper reviews the rejection of valuation evidence as a trend by reference to the treatment of valuation evidence in Court decisions and summarises the acceptance of a cost methodology to calculate loss in decisions over the past five years. The paper questions whether the acceptance of this method of Valuation in the narrow field of litigation may have a wider implication upon for the valuation profession.


Simulation of neural oscillations at 10 Hz. Upper panel shows spiking of individual neurons (with each dot representing an individual action potential within the population of neurons), and the lower panel the local field potential reflecting their summed activity. Figure illustrates how synchronized patterns of action potentials may result in macroscopic oscillations that can be measured outside the scalp. Neural oscillation is rhythmic or repetitive neural activity in the central nervous system. Neural tissue can generate oscillatory activity in many ways, driven either by mechanisms localized within individual neurons or by interactions between neurons. In individual neurons, oscillations can appear either as oscillations in membrane potential or as rhythmic patterns of action potentials, which then produce oscillatory activation of post-synaptic neurons. At the level of neural ensembles, synchronized activity of large numbers of neurons can give rise to macroscopic oscillations, which can be observed in the electroencephalogram (EEG). Oscillatory activity in groups of neurons generally arises from feedback connections between the neurons that result in the synchronization of their firing patterns. The interaction between neurons can give rise to oscillations at a different frequency than the firing frequency of individual neurons. A well-known example of macroscopic neural oscillations is alpha activity. Neural oscillations were observed by researchers as early as Hans Berger, but their functional role is still not fully understood. The possible roles of neural oscillations include feature binding, information transfer mechanisms and the generation of rhythmic motor output. Over the last decades more insight has been gained, especially with advances in brain imaging. A major area of research in neuroscience involves determining how oscillations are generated and what their roles are. Oscillatory activity in the brain is widely observed at different levels of observation and is thought to play a key role in processing neural information. Numerous experimental studies indeed support a functional role of neural oscillations; a unified interpretation, however, is still lacking.


In this study, macroalgae, microalgae and Bryophyta and Magnoliophyta members were investigated in Karamenderes Stream. The sampling was carried out between the dates of 19-23 July 2012, 09-10 October 2012 and 16-18 May 2013 and the sampling was made from eight stations, which were designated on the river and composed of different habitats. Microalgae flora is given as planktonic, epilitic, epipelic and epiphytic. A total of 107 taxa were identified. A total of 83 taxa were determined from microalgae. Of these, 32 are planktonic, 45 are epilitic, 57 are epiphytic and 60 are epipelic algae flora. Also 9 macroalgae, 1 Bryophyta and 14 Magnoliophyta members were determined.


Updating a shared data structure in a parallel program is usually done with some sort of high-level synchronization operation to ensure correctness and consistency. The realization of such high-level synchronization operations is done with appropriate low-level atomic synchronization instructions that the target processor architecture provides. These instructions are costly and often limited in their scalability on larger multicore / multi-processor systems. In this paper, a technique is discussed that replaces atomic updates of a shared data structure with ordinary and cheaper read/write operations. The necessary conditions are specified that must be fulfilled to ensure overall correctness of the program despite missing synchronization. The advantage of this technique is the reduction of access costs as well as more scalability due to elided atomic operations. But on the other side, possibly more work has to be done caused by missing synchronization. Therefore, additional work is traded against costly atomic operations. A practical application is shown with level-synchronous parallel Breadth-First Search on an undirected graph where two vertex frontiers are accessed in parallel. This application scenario is also used for an evaluation of the technique. Tests were done on four different large parallel systems with up to 64-way parallelism. It will be shown that for the graph application examined the amount of additional work caused by missing synchronization is neglectible and the performance is almost always better than the approach with atomic operations.


In this paper, a novel label fusion method is proposed for brain magnetic resonance image segmentation. This label fusion method is formulated on a graph, which embraces both label priors from atlases and anatomical priors from target image. To represent a pixel in a comprehensive way, three kinds of feature vectors are generated, including intensity, gradient, and structural signature. To select candidate atlas nodes for fusion, rather than exact searching, randomized k-d tree with spatial constraint is introduced as an efficient approximation for high-dimensional feature matching. Feature sensitive label prior (FSLP), which takes both the consistency and variety of different features into consideration, is proposed to gather atlas priors. As FSLP is a non-convex problem, one heuristic approach is further designed to solve it efficiently. Moreover, based on the anatomical knowledge, parts of the target pixels are also employed as the graph seeds to assist the label fusion process, and an iterative strategy is utilized to gradually update the label map. The comprehensive experiments carried out on two publicly available databases give results to demonstrate that the proposed method can obtain better segmentation quality.


The traditional timber structures are widely distributed in Far East area of Asia. They need to be protected both thoroughly and with some urgency since their great historical significance and they are seriously damaged by the seismic activities. Bracket complex is the primary component of traditional timber structures. The conventional connection of Dou and its lower structure is a wood peg. However, the wood peg connections have low strength and stiffness, and would be pulled out from the peg hole by the horizontal loads. This work developed a mechanism by using high strength steel or super-elastic alloy bars to replace conventional wood peg connection in order to enhance the strength and stiffness of the bracket complex system. Both metal bar connections could increase the strength of the structure significantly. In the first loading cycle, the Dou with high strength steel bar connection and super-elastic alloy bar connection can get 35% and 15% equivalent damping ratio respectively. After that, it drops to 5% when the Dou connect by high strength steel bar and remains above 12% by using super-elastic alloy bar. The pre-strain of super-elastic alloy bar can give a relative higher but not remarkable equivalent damping ratio of Dou.


Since the time in which Nida and Taber published The theory and practice of translation, there have been dramatic changes in the communication situations of Bible translation throughout the world. Further, advances in a variety of academic disciplines have enabled us to recognise and move beyond shortcomings of that work's portrayal of language, communication and translation. A recent project by the United Bible Societies has attempted to provide a more contemporary framework for understanding Bible translation. This paper focuses on the communication model developed for this project. Avoiding the fallacy of the conduit metaphor of communication, it explicitly refers to the goals of the participants in a communication situation and the organisational as well as sociocultural frames within which texts are produced and perceived. The framework suggested by this model encourages viewing translation as a process involving churches, communities and publishers as well as translators and choosing a particular translation approach in terms of mutually agreed upon goals. The Bible translation process may involve not just producing a text to represent the sacred text, but also supplementary texts to enhance understanding and appreciation of both the translation and the translated.
(Acta Theologica, Supplementum 2, 2002: 140-163)


Fourier Ptychographic Microscopy (FPM) is a computational technique that achieves a large space-bandwidth product imaging. It addresses the challenge of balancing a large field of view and high resolution by fusing information from multiple images taken with varying illumination angles. Nevertheless, conventional FPM framework always suffers from long acquisition time and a heavy computational burden. In this paper, we propose a novel physical neural network that generates an adaptive illumination mode by incorporating temporally-encoded illumination modes as a distinct layer, aiming to improve the acquisition and calculation efficiency. Both simulations and experiments have been conducted to validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method. It is worth mentioning that, unlike previous works that obtain the intensity of a multiplexed illumination by post-combination of each sequentially illuminated and obtained low-resolution images, our experimental data is captured directly by turning on multiple LEDs with a coded illumination pattern. Our method has exhibited state-of-the-art performance in terms of both detail fidelity and imaging velocity when assessed through a multitude of evaluative aspects.


In this paper we study statistically sound ways of comparing classifiers in absence for fully reliable reference data. Based on previously published partial frameworks, we explore a more comprehensive approach to comparing and ranking classifiers that is robust to incomplete, erroneous or missing reference evaluation data. On the one hand, the use of a generalized McNemar's test is shown to give reliable confidence measures in the ranking of two classifiers under the assumption of an existing better-than-random reference classifier. We extend its use to cases where its traditional formulation is notoriously unstable. We also provide a computational context that allows it to be used for large amounts of data. Our classifier evaluation model is generic and applies to any set of binary classifiers. We have more specifically tested and validated it on synthetic and real data coming from document image binarization.


•  A comparative study of copper (Cu) toxicity and tolerance in three populations of Fucus serratus was conducted by examining Cu2+ effects on various physiological parameters. •  Chlorophyll fluorescence, oxygen evolution, copper content, and relative growth rate of embryos and adults were measured on Cu2+ -exposed material. •  Algae naturally exposed to elevated total Cu concentration (CuT ), were more Cu2+ resistant than those from clean sites, as indicated by higher embryo and adult growth rates and lower copper contents. The Cu2+ tolerance of F. serratus is at least partly inherited and relies partly on metal exclusion. •  There were inhibitory effects of Cu2+ on oxygen exchange rates in both tolerant and non-tolerant algae. By contrast to sensitive algae, the maximum efficiency of photosystem II (Fv /Fm ), maximum fluorescence (Fm ) and zero fluorescence (Fo ) of resistant algae were unaffected by Cu2+ , whereas decreased quantum yield (ΦPSII) and increased nonphotochemical quenching (NPQ) were most pronounced in resistant algae. Inhibitory effects of Cu2+ on ΦPSII may result in the excitation energy being dissipated through xanthophyll-dependent quenching mechanisms in tolerant algae. In nontolerant algae, lower energy dissipation may result in chlorophyll degradation.


The ascidian Ciona intestinalis is one of the model organisms of choice for comparative investigations of chordate development and for unraveling the molecular mechanisms underlying morphogenesis and cell fate specification. Taking advantage of the availability of various genetically encoded fluorescent proteins and of defined cis‐regulatory elements, we combined transient transgenesis with laser scanning confocal imaging to acquire and quantitate 3D time‐lapse data from living Ciona embryos. We used Ciona tissue‐specific enhancers to drive expression of spectrally distinct fluorescent protein reporters to label and simultaneously visualize axially and paraxially positioned mesodermal derivatives, as well as neural precursors in individual embryos. We observed morphogenetic movements, without perturbing development, from the early gastrula throughout the larval stage, including gastrulation, neurulation, convergent extension of the presumptive notochord, and tail elongation. These multidimensional data allowed us to establish a reference system of metrics to quantify key developmental events including blastopore closure and muscle extension. The approach we describe can be used to document morphogenetic cell and tissue rearrangements in living embryos and paves the way for a live digitized anatomical atlas of Ciona. genesis 43:136–147, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Yamal peninsula is the largest center of reindeer herding in the Arctic, and Nenets historically and recently succeeded in maintaining their economic and ethnocultural potential. However, environmental challenges, such as the formation of a widespread ice crust across the Yamal Peninsula in the winter of 2013–2014 and the outbreak of anthrax in the summer of 2016, have provoked a discussion on Nenets herding "crisis" that allegedly implies the overgrowth of herds and the overgrazing of pastures. Biologists and administrators emphasize the necessity to significantly reduce the Yamal reindeer population "for the sake of environmental safety." The author of this article presents an alternative approach focused on a system of movement: skillful herd-navigation and quick maneuvering is the basis of Nenets' traditional rule ya puna hayoda (land after us remains). Conversely, the consequences of sluggish and stationary behavior, including huddling around camp for a long time, is reflected in another Nenets proverb: yadata habei ("land is turned upside down").


The e-textile landscape has enabled creators to combine textile materiality with electronic capability. However, the tools that e-textile creators use have been adapted from traditional textile or hardware tools. This puts creators at a disadvantage, as e-textile projects present new and unique challenges that currently can only be addressed using a non-specialized toolset. This paper introduces the first iteration of a wearable e-textile debugging tool to assist novice engineers in problem solving e-textile circuitry errors. These errors are often only detected after the project is fully built and are resolved only by disassembling the circuit. Our tool actively monitors the continuity of the conductive thread as the user stitches, which enables the user to identify and correct circuitry errors as they create their project.


In this chapter, we address a new control strategy for parallel manipulators based on L 1 adaptive control. This latter is known for its decoupled control and estimation loops, enabling fast adaptation and guaranteed robustness. To improve the tracking performance of parallel manipulators, we propose in this work to include the dynamic model of the robot in the control loop of L 1 adaptive control. The additional dynamics-based term partially compensates for inherent nonlinear dynamics of the robot in order to reduce the impact of uncertainties on the closed-loop system and enhance the overall control performance. Real-time experiments, conducted on a 4-DOF fast parallel ma-nipulator developed in our laboratory, demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller and its superiority compared to standard L 1 adaptive control in terms of tracking performance.


In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a VRML multi-user layer, which is introduced in the virtual reality platform. A novel 3D simulation system supporting tunnel boring machine (TBM) design is developed. The virtual environment (VE) of the TBM is established by VRML based on virtual reality technology, the 3D assembling model is built by Solidworks software and changed into the virtual environment by VRML format. The optimal method is put forward by three steps optimization data to realize transmission of network. The motion simulation and virtual assembly program for TBM are made by VRML/Java language with the movement simulation control function to realize motion simulation. It has the advantages of free installation, authenticity, interactivity, low-cost, portability, and low requiring for the clients and so on.


Research on infants' early development of aesthetic perception has focused on their ability to discriminate and evaluate auditory stimuli such as musical intervals or faces differing along their level of attractiveness. However, infants' discriminatory and evaluative responses in the domain of the visual arts have, as of today, not been examined. Artistic paintings are complex visual stimuli. Multiple cues such as color, style of brushing, common subjects, and others must be considered to discriminate and evaluate paintings from different artists. The authors examined infants' visual attention to works of 2 painters, namely Picasso and Monet. Results suggest that infants discriminate and categorize different paintings but that they display a spontaneous preference for paintings by Picasso.


Basal cell carcinoma is a common malignant tumour of skin, commonly referred to as "rodent ulcer". It is common in the head and neck region. Exposure to ultraviolet radiation is an important risk factor. Pigmented basal cell carcinoma is a clinical and histological variant of basal cell carcinoma that exhibits increased pigmentation. It is a rare variant that can clinically mimic malignant melanoma. It is more common in males than females. Herein, we are reporting a case of basal cell carcinoma in a 50 year old woman which was initially diagnosed as malignant melanoma clinically, and later histologically proved to be pigmented basal cell carcinoma.


Location-Based Services (LBS) are based on a combination of the inherent location information about specific data, and/or the location information supplied by LBS clients, requesting location-specific and otherwise customized services. The integration of location-annotated data with existing personal and public information and services creates opportunities for insightful new views on the world, and allows rich, personalized, and contextualized user experiences. One of the biggest constraints of current LBS is that most of them are essentially vertical services. These current designs makes it hard for users to integrate LBS from a variety of service providers, either to create intermediate value-added services such as social information sharing facilities, or to facilitate client-side aggregations and mashups across specific LBS providers. Our approach, the Tiled Feeds architecture, applies the well-established, standard Web service pattern of feeds, and extends it with query and location-based features. Using this approach, LBS on the Web can be exposed in a generalized and aggregation-friendly way. We believe this approach can be used to facilitate the creation of standardized, Web-friendly, horizontally integrated location-based services.


Purpose of review Allergen bronchoprovocation test (ABT) has been used to study asthma pathophysiology and as a disease-modelling tool to assess the properties and efficacy of new asthma drugs. In view of the complexity and heterogeneity of asthma, which has driven the definition of several phenotypes and endotypes, we aim to discuss the role of ABT in the era of precision medicine and provide guidance for clinicians how to interpret and use available data to understand the implications for the benefits of asthma treatment. Recent findings In this review, we summarize background knowledge and applications of ABT and provide an update with recent publications on this topic. In the past years, several studies have been published on ABT in combination with non-invasive and invasive airway samplings and innovative detection techniques allowing to study several inflammatory mechanisms linked to Th2-pathway and allergen-induced pathophysiology throughout the airways. Summary ABT is a valuable research tool, which has strongly contributed to precision medicine by helping to define allergen-triggered key inflammatory pathways and airway pathophysiology, and thus helped to shape our understanding of allergen-driven asthma phenotypes and endotypes. In addition, ABT has been instrumental to assess the interactions and effects of new-targeted asthma treatments along these pathways.


Fibre Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors are gaining popularity in biomedical engineering. However, specific standards for in vivo testing for their use are absolutely limited. In this study, in vitro experimental tests were performed to investigate the behaviors and applications of gratings attached to intact and fractured thighbone for a range of compression loading (<300 N) based around some usual daily activities. The wavelength shifts and the corresponding strain sensitivities of the FBG sensors were measured to determine their effectiveness in monitoring the femoral fracture healing process. Four different arrangements of FBG sensors were selected to measure strains at different critical locations on the femoral sawbones surface. Data obtained for intact and plated sawbones were compared using both embedded longitudinal and coiled FBG arrays. Strains were measured close to the fracture, posterior linea aspera and popliteal surface areas, as well as at the proximal and distal ends of the synthetic femur; their responses are discussed herein. The gratings on the longitudinally secured FBG arrays were found to provide high levels of sensitivity and precise measurements, even for relatively small loads (<100 N). Nevertheless, embedding angled FBG sensors is essential to measure the strain generated by applied torque on the femur bone. The maximum recorded strain of the plated femur was 503.97 µε for longitudinal and −274.97 µε for coiled FBG arrays, respectively. These project results are important to configure effective arrangements and orientations of FBG sensors with respect to fracture position and fixation implant for future in vivo experiments.


We extend a recent consistent strong learning algorithm for a subclass of probabilistic context-free grammars in Chomsky normal form, (Clark and Fijalkow, 2020) to a much larger class of grammars by weakening the normal form constraints to allow for a richer class of derivation structures that are not necessarily binary branching, including among other possibilities unary branching trees which introduce some technical difficulties. By modifying the structural conditions appropriately we obtain an algorithm which is computationally efficient, and a consistent estimator for the class of grammars defined.


When sending text messages on their mobile phone to friends, children often use a special type of register, which is called textese. This register allows the omission of words and the use of textisms: instances of non-standard written language such as 4ever (forever). Previous studies have shown that textese has a positive effect on children's literacy abilities. In addition, it is possible that children's grammar system is affected by textese as well, as grammar rules are often transgressed in this register. Therefore, the main aim of this study was to investigate whether the use of textese influences children's grammar performance, and whether this effect is specific to grammar or language in general. Additionally, studies have not yet investigated the influence of textese on children's cognitive abilities. Consequently, the secondary aim of this study was to find out whether textese affects children's executive functions. To investigate this, 55 children between 10 and 13 years old were tested on a receptive vocabulary and grammar performance (sentence repetition) task and various tasks measuring executive functioning. In addition, text messages were elicited and the number of omissions and textisms in children's messages were calculated. Regression analyses showed that omissions were a significant predictor of children's grammar performance after various other variables were controlled for: the more words children omitted in their text messages, the better their performance on the grammar task. Although textisms correlated (marginally) significantly with vocabulary, grammar and selective attention scores and omissions marginally significantly with vocabulary scores, no other significant effects were obtained for measures of textese in the regression analyses: neither for the language outcomes, nor for the executive function tasks. Hence, our results show that textese is positively related to children's grammar performance. On the other hand, use of textese does not affect—positively nor negatively—children's executive functions.


Neuroinflammation is a common feature shared by neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson's disease (PD), and seems to play a key role in their development and progression. Microglia cells, the principal orchestrators of neuroinflammation, can be polarized in different phenotypes, which means they are able to have anti-inflammatory, pro-inflammatory, or neurodegenerative effects. Increasing evidence supports that the traditional Mediterranean dietary pattern is related to the reduction of cognitive decline in neurodegenerative diseases. A considerable intake of plant foods, fish, and extra virgin olive oil (EVOO), as well as a moderate consumption of red wine, all characteristic of the Mediterranean diet (MD), are behind these effects. These foods are especially rich in polyphenols, being the most relevant in the MD hydroxytyrosol (HT) and their derivatives present in EVOO, which have demonstrated a wide array of biological activities. Here, we demonstrate that HT is able to reduce the inflammation induced by two different stimuli: lipopolysaccharide and α-synuclein. We also study the possible molecular mechanisms involved in the anti-inflammatory effect of HT, including the study of nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB), mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs), nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) oxidase, and inflammasome. Our data support the use of HT to prevent the inflammation associated with PD and shed light into the relationship between MD and this neurological disorder.


Practical use of Computer Vision for surface roughness estimation faces many challenges, as only image is used for evaluation rather than the components. Existing schemes are less suited for real-time machine vision applications due to the great computational burden involved in processing a large image. For example, an operation such as rotation and scaling involves four multiplications and four additions per pixel, which is going to be computationally complex. In this paper, the quantitative measure of surface roughness is estimated in the spatial frequency domain using wavelet transformation (WT) by extracting four features namely total energy (Et), energy horizontal (Eh), energy vertical (Ev) and energy diagonal (Ed). An exhaustive analysis is done with comparison studies wherever required to make sure that the proposed method of estimating surface finish based on the computer vision processing of image is more consistent. The predicted surface finish values using WT are found to correlate well with the conventional stylus surface finish (Rt) values.


Immutability is a valuable feature for programmers in object-oriented languages: making objects immutable often simplifies reasoning about the correctness of code, particularly when concurrency is present. Java allows programmers to express and enforce immutability by declaring all fields of an object "final", but this comes at the cost of decreased expressiveness and intuitiveness of initialization. In this work, we propose a minimalistic type-based mechanism that both enforces immutability and relaxes these constraints on initialization. Furthermore, we propose and formalize two different type systems based on this mechanism that form a meaningful trade-off with respect to complexity, expressiveness, and strength of static guarantees. System One is simple, more expressive, and provides object-level immutability; System Two has more complicated annotation, is less expressive, and ensures that immutable objects are fully initialized in addition to enforcing immutability.


With the advent of languages and tools dedicated to model-driven engineering (e.g., ATL, Kermeta, EMF), as well as reference metamodels (MOF, Ecore), model-driven development processes can be used easily. However, the maturity of a software engineering technology should be evaluated by the degree of use of trace ability practices. One of the first major challenges consists in generating automatically trace information during a transformation process. Our contribution is a tool dedicated to infer traces during the execution of a model transformation. This tool is based on aspect oriented programming which permits us to isolate management of traces and imperative transformations code in a Java/EMF environment. A meta-model of nested traces allows the visualisation of traces as nested graphs which represent the trace ability links and the control flow diagram of the execution. A model-to-model case study is proposed as an example to illustrate our contribution.


A proposed design for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Web site was evaluated against the original design in terms of the ease with which the right starting points for key tasks were located and processed. This report focuses on the eye tracking methodology that accompanied other conventional usability practices used in the evaluation.

Twelve ASCO members were asked to complete several search tasks using each design. Performance measures such as click accuracy and time on task were supplemented with eye movements which allowed for an assessment of the processes that led to both the failures and the successes.

The report details three task examples in which eye tracking helped diagnose errors and identify the better of the two designs (and the reasons for its superiority) when both were equally highly successful. Advantages and limitations of the application of eye tracking to design comparison are also discussed.


Critical programming concepts such as recursion and inheritance are often difficult to grasp for beginners. As a result, students perform poorly in introductory programming courses and the attrition rate has become a severe nationwide problem 1 . Surveys reveal that many students are unable to comprehend "what is happening to their program in the memory" and "each instruction is executed in the state created by the previous instructions" 2, 3 . To help students understand the essence of programming, revamping the teaching materials to effectively deliver the knowledge becomes essential. This paper presents a work that is currently conducted at the Computer Science Department of ABC University, which, through pilot testing, showed to be efficient in increasing student engagement and supporting teachers' instructional needs. The key strategy is to use new courseware to enhance student learning. Developed by applying Flash and animation technologies, the new courseware and programming learning modules can: (1) make programming interesting while retaining the underlying contents; (2) visualize programming logic and memory change; make abstract and intricate concepts "visible" and "touchable", and thereby, easy to understand; and (3) foster self-study, stimulate critical thinking, and improve students' learning effectiveness outside class meetings. The goal is to ensure that computer majoring students, especially freshman and sophomores, can develop correct understanding of programming concepts. To better organize the courseware, a training system is implemented to manage the learning modules and support online access. A summary of the programming topics, courses impacted, and samples of the designs of the learning modules are discussed.


Pregnancy provides a very public, visual confirmation of femininity. It is a time of rapid physical and psychological adjustment for women and is surrounded by stereotyping, taboos and social expectations. This book seeks to examine these popular attitudes towards pregnancy and to consider how they influence women's experiences of being pregnant. Sanctioning Pregnancy offers a unique critique of sociocultural constructions of pregnancy and the ways in which it is represented in contemporary culture, and examines the common myths which exist about diet, exercise and work in pregnancy, alongside notions of risk and media portrayals of pregnant women. Topics covered include: •Do pregnant women change their diet and why? •Is memory really impaired in pregnancy? •How risky behaviour is defined from exercise to employment •The biomedical domination of pregnancy research. Different theoretical standpoints are critically examined, including a medico-scientific model, feminist perspectives and bio-psychosocial and psychodynamic approaches. Table of Contents: Introduction. Cognition and Cognitive Dysfunction. Working and Employment. Dietary Change and Eating. Exercise and Activity. Pregnancy and Risk. Pregnancy Under Surveillance. Concluding Remarks. References/Bibliography. Index.


Abstact Status quo bias is a systematic cognitive error which makes it difficult for individuals to make decisions independently of the currently dominant situation. This study pursues the question of whether bond market analysts are affected by status quo bias. We evaluated interest rate forecast series from twelve industrial nations. This revealed that, on average, forecasts were much too close to the status quo – the current interest rate at the time when the forecast was made. With the aid of various analytical procedures it can be shown that the actual extent of interest rate changes is systematically and significantly underestimated.


The paper deals with a multiple species Lotka–Volterra model with infinite distributed delays and feedback controls, for which we assume a weak form of diagonal dominance of the instantaneous negative intra-specific terms over the infinite delay effect in both the population variables and controls. General sufficient conditions for the existence and attractivity of a saturated equilibrium are established. When the saturated equilibrium is on the boundary of , sharper criteria for the extinction of all or part of the populations are given. While the literature usually treats the case of competitive systems only, here no restrictions on the signs of the intra- and inter-specific delayed terms are imposed. Moreover, our technique does not require the construction of Lyapunov functionals.


Neospora caninum, the causative agent of neosporosis, is a recently identified apicomplexan parasite which is structurally and biologically closely related to, but antigenically distinct from, Toxoplasma gondii. Molecules associated with the surfaces of N. caninum tachyzoites are likely to participate in the host cell entry process, could be involved in the interaction of the parasite with the immune system, and they could influence the pathogenesis of neosporosis. Isolated N. caninum tachyzoites were extracted with the non-ionic detergent Triton X–114 and were further analysed using a polyclonal anti-N. caninum antiserum. Immunoblots revealed several reactive bands, 1 of which represented a glycoprotein of approximately 36 kDa (Nc-p36). This molecule was present in 2 isolates of Neospora (NC-1 and Liverpool), but was absent in Toxoplasma (RH-strain) tachyzoites. Immunofluorescence and pre-embedding immunogold transmission electron microscopy employing affinity-purified anti-Nc-p36 antibodies showed that the Nc-p36 is a cell surface-associated protein. Immunogold on-section labelling of LR-White-embedded parasites, fixed prior and at defined time-points after host cell entry, demonstrated the presence of this molecule on the surface as well as within the dense granules of N. caninum tachyzoites.


Patient video taken at home can provide valuable insights into the recovery progress during a programme of physical therapy, but is very time consuming for clinician review. Our work focussed on i) enabling any patient to share information about progress at home, simply by sharing video and ii) building intelligent systems to support Physical Therapists (PTs) in reviewing this video data and extracting the necessary detail. This paper reports the development of the system, appropriate for future clinical use without reliance on a technical team, and the clinician involvement in that development. We contribute an interactive contentbased video retrieval system that significantly reduces the time taken for clinicians to review videos, using human head movement as an example. The system supports query-by-movement (clinicians move their own body to define search queries) and retrieves the essential fine-grained movements needed for clinical interpretation. This is done by comparing sequences of image-based pose estimates (here head rotations) through a distance metric (here Fréchet distance) and presenting a ranked list of similar movements to clinicians for review. In contrast to existing intelligent systems for retrospective review of human movement, the system supports a flexible analysis where clinicians can look for any movement that interests them. Evaluation by a group of PTs with expertise in training movement control showed that 96% of all relevant movements were identified with time savings of as much as 99.1% compared to reviewing target videos in full. The novelty of this contribution includes retrospective progress monitoring that preserves context through video, and content-based video retrieval that supports both fine-grained human actions and queryby-movement. Future research, including large clinician-led studies, will refine the technical aspects and explore the benefits in terms of patient outcomes, PT time, and financial savings over the course of a programme of therapy. It is anticipated that this clinician-led approach will mitigate the reported slow clinical uptake of technology with resulting patient benefit.


The design and operation of clean rooms is a subject of interest to many professionals, and if all the sectors that use clean rooms are considered, it is a very complex technology. Great benefits can be gained if the different sectors of industry study the developments going on in other areas. In this article, the author presents a review of the developments that have taken place in the past forty years. Information on general standards, guidelines, and specific standards for the medical device and pharmaceutical industries is provided, together with an update on work that is currently being undertaken on new standards.


Worldwide, housing is increasingly unaffordable for young people, many of whom rely on intergenerational transfer of assets to enter home ownership. The explanation lies in two macro-structural shifts: the retrenchment of the welfare state and the rise of the home-owning society. A case study in Chongqing, China suggests an answer to the following research question: How does the expectation of reciprocity affect housingasset intergenerational transfer (HIT) in contemporary China where the welfare system is not equally distributed among urban and rural residents? Data derived from 31 in-depth interviews with young adults and parents show that HIT is perceived as an exchange of financial support in the present for generalized support in the future. Families with a rural migration background, who tend to have less access to the public welfare system due to China's dual hukou system, are the most eager to invest in HIT and expect the most reciprocity.


Indragiri Hilir Regency has great potential in catch fisheries sector. However, many obstacles and challenges faced by local governments in the development of capture fisheries business, due to various factors. The objectives of this research are: 1) to identify the potential of capture fisheries, ie facilities and infrastructure, and the existing condition 2) to formulate the strategy of developing the capture fishery business. This research used qualitative and quantitative approach. The data collected includes primary and secondary data. Data collection techniques were condusted through in-depth interviews and FGDs with business actors, as well as stakeholders in Indragiri Hilir District equipped with observations and documentations. Data analysis used SWOT method by first analyzed the internal and external factors that produced 3 alternative strategies. These alternatives strategies then re-analyzed using the QSPM analysis unit to determined of priority strategies. The results of this research is the potential of capture fisheries in Indragiri Hilir Regency is very large, but there are still many obstacles due to facilities and infrastructure support is still minimal. Alternative strategies generated in this study are 1). utilization of fisheries and marine resources through improvement of facilities and infrastructure of environmentally friendly fishing units, 2). optimizing the role and function of TPI through PPI development, 3). increasing the role of "Pokmaswas" through the provision and utilization of monitoring facilities.


In Britain, international migrants have very recently become the major workforce in labour-intensive horticulture. This paper explores the causes of the dramatic increase since the 1990s in the employment of migrant workers in this subsector. It locates this major change in a general pattern of intensification of horticultural production driven by an ongoing process of concentration in retailer power, and in the greater availability of migrant workers, shaped in part by state initiatives to manage immigration.The paper draws on concepts developed in the US literature on agrarian capitalism. It then uses case histories from British horticulture to illustrate how growers have directly linked innovations involving intensification through labour control to their relationships with retailers. Under pressure on 'quality', volume and price, growers are found to have ratcheted up the effort required from workers to achieve the minimum wage through reducing the rates paid for piecework, and in some cases to have changed the type of labour contractor they use to larger, more anonymous businesses. The paper calls for further, commodity-specific and spatially-aware research with a strong ethnographic component.


We used measures of regional brain electrical activity to show that not all smiles are the same. Only one form of smiling produced the physiological pattern associated with enjoyment. Our finding helps to explain why investigators who treated all smiles as the same found smiles to be ubiquitous, occurring when people are unhappy as well as happy. Also, our finding that voluntarily making two different kinds of smiles generated the same two patterns of regional brain activity as was found when these smiles occur involuntarily suggests that it is possible to generate deliberately some of the physiological change which occurs during spontaneous positive affect.


The use of embolic protection (EPD) during carotid artery stenting (CAS) has always made intuitive sense. There is no randomized trial evidence in favour of the use of EPDs and this results from the statistical challenge posed when attempting to compare variations in technique based on the outcome measure all stroke/death/myocardial infarction (MI) for a procedure such as CAS which, in experienced units, is associated with such a low baseline hazard. In order to detect a statistically meaningful difference between protected and unprotected populations, many thousands of patents would have to be recruited and this would entail a concerted effort amongst a population of physicians who are largely beyond uncertainty or equipoise regarding this particular issue. Accepting this, each type of device has been shown to capture macroemboli, implying, irrefutably, an added level of protection for the brain during CAS when EPDs are employed. Since their inception early in the last decade, the stenting community has been aware of the limitations of each type of system and accordingly, necessity has driven invention. This review seeks to present data on the newest EPDs, the philosophy behind them, their unique advantages, clinical data supporting their use and data highlighting the influence of these newer systems on the microembolic penalty of CAS, where available.


This paper examines the extent to which there are differential incentives that motivate the adoption of environmental management practices (EMPs) and pollution prevention (P2) methods. We analyze the role of internal drivers such as managerial attitudes towards the environment and external pressures using both observed characteristics of facilities and perceived pressures. We estimate a structural equation model using survey data from facilities in Oregon that involves simultaneous estimation of the latent dependent and explanatory variables and the two regression equations explaining adoption behavior of EMPs and P2. We find that perceived regulatory pressures and managerial attitudes have a statistically significant impact on the adoption of both EMPs and P2 practices, while market pressures were significant in influencing the adoption of EMPs but not P2 methods. Furthermore; we find that both external regulatory pressures and internal managerial attitudes had a larger impact in motivating adoption by facilities that did not view environmental issues as being a significant concern as compared to facilities that did.


A new (Mg0.5Fe 0.5)(Si0.5Al 0.5)O3 LiNbO3-type phase was synthesized at 27 GPa and 2000 K under highly oxidized conditions using an advanced multi-anvil apparatus. Single crystals for this phase are 0.2–0.3 mm in dimension and maroon in color. They crystallize in a noncentrosymmetric structure with space group R3c and lattice parameters of a = b = 4.8720(6) Å, c = 12.898(2) Å, and V = 265.14(8) Å3. Fe3+ and Al3+ cations substitute into A (Mg2+) and B (Si4+) sites through charge-coupled substitution mechanism, respectively. The distortion of BO6 (B = Si0.5Al 0.5) octahedra is 1.6 times higher than that of AO6 (A = Mg0.5Fe 0.5) octahedra. This phase is probably recovered from bridgmanite at lower-mantle conditions by a diffusionless transition because of the displacement of A cations and distortion of BO6 octahedra on releasing pressure. Bridgmanite can thus contain the FeAlO3 component (50 mol%) beyond previously reported solubility limit (37 mol%). The present study shows that the Earth's most abundant elements form a new Fe3+and Al3+-rich LiNbO3-type compound from bridgmanite at lower mantle conditions. This new compound provides a new insight into the complicated crystal chemistry of LiNbO3-type phase/ bridgmanite and constrains the pressure and temperature conditions for shocked meteorites.


Distributed multimedia system which not only integrates various multimedia information distributed over computer networks and but also provides it the users in accordance with the user's requirement during real-time multimedia communication must guarantee the user requested quality of services (QoS) even though the computer and network resources change dynamically or statically. We have proposed a flexible multimedia system which is based on agent-oriented architecture and is able to organize required functions itself. Moreover, the system provides both real time and stored multimedia information services simultaneously to users even though various user's multimedia environment and the resource utility of computers or networks has been dynamically changed. This paper describes about the FMS architecture for multimedia teleconferencing system with QoS guarantee functions, and introduces organization protocols and QoS negotiation protocols. In multimedia teleconference service, FMS is able to realize the multimedia communication services flexibly for service requests and QoS requests from users.


Hot Jupiters—short-period giant planets—were the first extrasolar planets to be discovered, but many questions about their origin remain. NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an all-sky search for transiting planets, presents an opportunity to address these questions by constructing a uniform sample of hot Jupiters for demographic study through new detections and unifying the work of previous ground-based transit surveys. As the first results of an effort to build this large sample of planets, we report here the discovery of 10 new hot Jupiters (TOI-2193A b, TOI-2207b, TOI-2236b, TOI-2421b, TOI-2567b, TOI-2570b, TOI-3331b, TOI-3540A b, TOI-3693b, TOI-4137b). All of the planets were identified as planet candidates based on periodic flux dips observed by TESS, and were subsequently confirmed using ground-based time-series photometry, high-angular-resolution imaging, and high-resolution spectroscopy coordinated with the TESS Follow-up Observing Program. The 10 newly discovered planets orbit relatively bright F and G stars (G < 12.5, T eff between 4800 and 6200 K). The planets' orbital periods range from 2 to 10 days, and their masses range from 0.2 to 2.2 Jupiter masses. TOI-2421b is notable for being a Saturn-mass planet and TOI-2567b for being a "sub-Saturn," with masses of 0.322 ± 0.073 and 0.195 ± 0.030 Jupiter masses, respectively. We also measured a detectably eccentric orbit (e = 0.17 ± 0.05) for TOI-2207b, a planet on an 8 day orbit, while placing an upper limit of e < 0.052 for TOI-3693b, which has a 9 day orbital period. The 10 planets described here represent an important step toward using TESS to create a large and statistically useful sample of hot Jupiters.


Buying Time with Tourism in the Caribbean. Jean S. Holder. International Journal of Tourism Management, vol. 1, no. 2, June 1980, pp. 76-83. IPC Science and Technology Press Ltd., P.O. Box 63, Westbury House, Bury Street, Guildford, Surrey GU2 5BH, United Kingdom. Annual subscription $117. In examining the natural advantages of the Caribbean and its disadvantages, this article concludes that tourism should be a priority sector in Caribbean economic development.


This paper studies the determinants of the unusually high and volatile price differential between common (voting) shares and preferred (nonvoting) shares in Russia's emerging stock market. It focuses on three potential explanations for the price spread between these two classes of stock: the control contest model of the voting premium, the inferior liquidity of preferred shares, and the risk of expropriation of preferred shareholders as a class. The regression analysis, based on data from 1997 to 2005, supports the control contest explanation and the liquidity argument. The hypothesis of expropriation of preferred shareholders as a class receives limited support, and only in the early period of the Russian stock market's development. The paper addresses the issue of structural breaks in the evolution of the price differential, related to the 1998 financial crisis and to improvements in investor protection in Russia in the early 2000s. It also provides new estimates of the magnitude of the private benefits of control in Russian companies.


This paper presents a summary of cellular and dendritic morphologies resulting from the upward directional solidification of Al – Ni alloys in a cylindrical crucible. We analysed the coupling of solid-liquid interface morphology with natural and forced convection. The influence of natural convection was first analyzed as a function of growth parameters (solute concentration, growth rate and thermal gradient). In a second step, the influence of axial vibrations on solidification microstructure was investigated by varying vibration parameters (amplitude and frequency). Experimental results were compared to preliminary numerical simulations and a good agreement is found for natural convection. In this study, the critical role of the mushy zone in the interaction between fluid flow and solidification microstructure is pointed out.


The most striking feature that links all the contributions to the theme of Science under siege: zoology under threat, is the rejection of the notion that science is optional in our society, i.e. that science can be ignored, even derided. In the main, these anti-science worldviews derive from religious groups that are hostile to science, a political or commercial stance that sees short-term gains in rejecting or undermining science, or a non-zoological understanding of animals that arrives at a philosophical position opposed to the study and management of wild animals. The extreme 'animal rights' position is also inimical to conservation of our native fauna, although an ethical approach to animals and the environment is a critical component to their long-term management and we both encourage, and participate in, this debate. Brian Martin, in his engaging paper on Breaking the siege: guidelines for struggle in science, observed that when scientists come under attack, it is predictable that the attackers will use methods to minimise public outrage over the attack, including covering up the action, devaluing the target, reinterpreting what is happening, using official processes to give an appearance of justice, and intimidating people involved. Zoology is under attack, so are working zoologists, and the distressing consequence for our fauna will be its continuing decline. With increasing rates of extinction that reflect threats, such as invasive species and climate change compounding the impact of simplified landscapes, Australia is being progressively robbed of its rich zoological legacy.


Understanding the mechanism of solid scale dissolution at a molecular level is important to formulate a new chemical dissolver. A molecular dynamics simulation between glutamic acid diacetic acid (GLDA) with calcite was performed to understand the intermolecular interaction between the carboxylic groups with calcium ions (Ca) during the dissolution process at 90 °C. Two solid scales obtained from oil wells were characterised using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersing x-ray (EDX). The dissolutions test of the solid scales were conducted using two ionic liquids solutions; 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate (Bmim-PF6) and tetrabutylammonium nonafluorobutane sulfonate (Tba-NfO) to evaluate the ionic liquids for solid scales dissolution. Hydroxyls (-OH) in the carboxylic groups of GLDA have strong intermolecular interactions with Ca that plays a role in the chelation process. Two of the carboxylic groups close to amine have the strongest interactions with calcium ions in calcite. Characterisations result shows that the two solid scales are silica-based and barite based. Barite scales have kink-terrace-step crystal surface. Dissolutions test shows that both ionic liquids solutions can dissolve the silica solid scale up to 2700 ppm.


Abstract Leaf margin analysis (LMA) is a widely used method that applies present-day linear correlation between the proportion of woody dicotyledonous species with untoothed leaves (P) and mean annual temperature (MAT) to estimate paleotemperatures from fossil leaf floras. Previous works demonstrate that LMA shows regional constraints and to date, no equation has been modeled directly from Chinese forests. Fifty humid to mesic Chinese forests were chosen to understand the relationship between percentage of untoothed leaf species and MAT in China. Consistent with previous studies, the Chinese data indicate that P shows a strong linear correlation with MAT, but the actual relationship is a little different from those recognized from other regions. Among the several currently used LMA equations, the one resulting from North and Central American and Japanese data, rather than the widely used East Asian LMA equation, yields the closest values to the actual MATs of the Chinese samples (mean absolute error = 1.9 °C). A new equation derived from the Chinese forests is therefore developed, where MAT = 1.038 + 27.6 × P. This study not only demonstrates the similarity of the relationship between P and MAT in the Northern Hemisphere, but also improves the reliability of LMA for paleoclimate reconstructions of Chinese paleofloras.


Abstract. Taking advantage of 9 years of the CHAMP (CHAllenging Minisatellite Payload) satellite mission (June 2000–August 2009), we investigate the temporal evolution of the observatory monthly magnetic biases. To determine these biases we compute X (northward), Y (eastward) and Z (vertically downward) monthly means from 42 observatory 1 min values or hourly values, and compare them to synthetic monthly means obtained from a G field model (Lesur et al., 2015). Afterwards, the average of biases at all observatories over 9 years is calculated and analyzed. Both the long-term trends and short-period variations (hereafter e variations) around these averages are then investigated. The simple oscillatory pattern of e, found at all observatories and in each component over the entire considered period, indicates that the crustal field has not changed. A comparison with both MAGSAT and Orsted biases given for epochs 1979.92 and 1999.92 which are based on 2 single months (November and December) of MAGSAT and Orsted satellite data, respectively, further shows that the crustal field has probably remained constant over last 3 decades. The long-trend seen in e reflects the changes within the solar cycle 23. The short period variations observed in the e time series are related to the external field. The amplitudes of these variations are found to be in phase with solar cycle periods, being remarkably larger over 2000–2005 than 2006–2009. Furthermore, clear semi-annual variations are observed in e, with larger extremes appearing mostly around October and November, and around May and June of each year in X, and vice versa in Y and Z. A common external field pattern is found for the European monthly biases. The dependence of the bias monthly variations on geomagnetic latitudes is not found for non-European observatories. The results from this study represent a base to further exploit the magnetic biases computed for observatories and repeat station locations together by using data from the new satellite mission Swarm.


The theoretical aspects of the light scattering on the statistical irregularities of the planar optical waveguide are described. The analysis of direct and inverse light scattering problems is accomplished. The theoretical investigation predicts: the lateral resolution can attain approximately 20 nm and the vertical resolution (in rms height) can attain approximately 1 angstrom. The limiting lateral resolution is a approximately 15-times less than Abbe's diffraction limit. Thus the superresolution may be accomplished by the waveguide optical microscopy (WOM). The increasing of WOM's resolution depends on a-priori information of the irregularities and on a sufficiently high signal-to-noise ratio. A possible using of WOM for bioecological researchers has been mentioned.


Background: Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in populations of European ancestry have identified several loci that confer an increased risk of colorectal cancer (CRC). Methods: We studied the generalizability of the associations with 11 risk variants for CRC on 8q23 (rs16892766), 8q24 (rs6983267), 9p24 (rs719725), 10p14 (rs10795668), 11q23 (rs3802842), 14q22 (rs4444235), 15q13 (rs4779584), 16q22 (rs9929218), 18q21 (rs4939827), 19q13 (rs10411210), and 20p12 (rs961253) in a multiethnic sample of 2,472 CRC cases, 839 adenoma cases and 4,466 controls comprised of European American, African American, Native Hawaiian, Japanese American, and Latino men and women. Because findings for CRC and adenoma were similar, we combined both groups in the analyses. Results: We confirmed the associations with an increased risk of CRC/adenoma for the 8q24, 11q23 and 15q13 loci in European Americans, and observed significant associations between the 8q24 and 20p12 loci with CRC/adenoma risk in African Americans. Moreover, we found statistically significant cumulative effects of risk alleles on CRC/adenoma risk in all populations (odds ratio [OR] per allele = 1.07–1.09, P ≤ 0.039) except in Japanese Americans (OR = 1.01, P = 0.52). We found heterogeneity in the associations by tumor subsite, age of CRC/adenoma onset, sex, body mass index (BMI), and smoking status for some of the variants. Conclusions: These results provide evidence that the known variants are in aggregate significantly associated with CRC/adenoma risk in multiple populations except Japanese Americans, and the influences may differ across groups defined by clinicopathological characteristics for some variants. Impact: These results underline the importance of studying the epidemiologic architecture of these genetic effects in large and diverse populations. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 20(1); 70–81. ©2011 AACR.


There is little doubt that the hospital was damaged when the Serbs departed, but this was but a last parting shot at an institution that had been run down for years and particularly since 1990. It was about then that Milosovic redeployed Serb staff from Belgrade to replace local ethnic Albanian staff and the slide to the present situation really began.

I was here myself in 1992. All the senior staff whom I met were Serbs and unhappy at their forced exile from Belgrade. They told me that the Albanians had walked out and set up their own parallel medical school. Those Albanian professors are now back, and while some jumped before they were pushed, and others left in protest at the failure of the Serbs to recognise the Albanian language, they certainly describe a grave injustice.

 ![][1]

The immediate crisis at Pristina hospital is easing

(Credit: NIKOLAS GIAKOUMIDIS/AP PHOTO)

When NATO arrived many Serbs left, but not all, and the hospital still had many Serb staff—particularly doctors. The mass return of Albanian staff …

 [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif


Contemporary Italian digital channels explicitly targeting women (such as Real Time, Lei, Fox Life, La5, and La7d) represent a privileged observatory for some general trends in the international circulation of content and incorporation of foreign formats into national television (TV). In fact, their schedules rely heavily on the genre of factual entertainment, which was first devised and used in international contexts, such as the UK and the US, and only in the second phase was imported into other national TV environments. After introducing this scenario and the main issues connected to the circulation of international content on these channels, the article will focus on the BBC docu-reality Don't Tell the Bride. The show was extensively circulated (UK and US versions) in the circuit of Italian women channels before a national version was produced by the pay-TV brand Lei. The article will reflect on how the national version Non ditelo alla sposa added further shades to the original meaning of the format. While the international version only allowed the Italian audience to engage with the programme through a romantic and escapist approach, the local adaptation inserted practical advice in the storytelling on how to arrange a low budget yet traditional wedding day, coupled with the sarcastic and ironic points of view of the characters involved.


This article examines the dominant discourses teachers in early childhood education (ECE) used to produce understandings of children and educational practice for them. Seven teachers from two early childhood centres in urban KwaZulu-Natal participated in this qualitative study. Data were produced through semi-structured interviews and conversations. The shared discourses of biology, development and difference are discussed. The findings show that teachers unproblematically use dominant discourses which narrow possibilities for them to understand children. This in turn limits their capacity for shaping contextually relevant practice. The article concludes with a brief discussion on worthy areas to focus on in order to map a way forward for developing the skills and capacity of teachers in ECE.


For individuals with developmental disabilities who engage in problem behavior, incorporating a choice to engage in preferred activities as a part of their treatments might enhance treatment efficacy. In the current investigation, access to activity choice was used to reduce problem behaviors in two children with developmental disabilities through a differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) contingency in which the reinforcer was participant choice of the next activity. Results suggested that access to choice opportunities within the context of a DRO condition was an effective method for decreasing problem behavior and increasing engagement in nonpreferred work activities.


We consider an insurance company whose reserves dynamics follow a diffusion-perturbed risk model. To reduce its risk, the company chooses to reinsure using proportional or excess-of-loss reinsurance. Using the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) approach, we derive a second-order Volterra integrodifferential equation (VIDE) which we transform into a linear Volterra integral equation (VIE) of the second kind. We then proceed to solve this linear VIE numerically using the block-by-block method for the optimal reinsurance policy that minimizes the ultimate ruin probability for the chosen parameters. Numerical examples with both light- and heavy-tailed distributions are given. The results show that proportional reinsurance increases the survival of the company in both light- and heavy-tailed distributions for the Cramer-Lundberg and diffusion-perturbed models.


18 microanalytical media, used for the construction of a biochemical plate test system permitting the specific identification of bacteria of the genus Lactobacillus, were developed on the basis of data on the metabolic activity of these bacteria and their need of growth factors. As the results of studies made on 78 Lactobacillus strains with the use of traditional microbiological and gene-systematizing methods, the proposed test system was shown to be reliable and specific.


Abstract. There is considerable interest in using low-cost optical
particle counters (OPCs) to supplement existing routine air quality networks
that monitor particle mass concentrations. In order to do this, low-cost OPC
data need to be comparable with particle mass reference
instrumentation; however, there is currently no widely agreed upon methodology to accomplish this. Aerosol
hygroscopicity is known to be a key parameter to consider when correcting
particle mass concentrations derived from low-cost OPCs, particularly at
high ambient relative humidity (RH). Correction factors have been developed
that apply κ-Köhler theory to correct for the influence of water
uptake by hygroscopic aerosols. We have used datasets of co-located
reference particle measurements and low-cost OPC (OPC-N2, Alphasense) measurements, collected in four cities on three continents, to explore the performance of
this correction factor. We provide evidence that the elevated particle mass
concentrations, reported by the low-cost OPC relative to reference
instrumentation, are due to bulk aerosol hygroscopicity under different RH
conditions, which is determined by aerosol composition and, in particular, the
levels of hygroscopic aerosols (sulfate and nitrate). We exploit
measurements made in volcanic plumes in Nicaragua, which are predominantly
composed of sulfate aerosol, as a natural experiment to demonstrate this
behaviour in the ambient atmosphere; the observed humidogram from these measurements closely
resembles the calculated pure sulfuric acid humidogram. The results
indicate that the particle mass concentrations derived from low-cost OPCs
during periods of high RH (>60 %) need to be corrected for
aerosol hygroscopic growth. We employed a correction factor based on κ-Köhler theory and observed that the corrected OPC-N2 PM2.5 mass
concentrations were within 33 % of reference measurements at all sites.
The results indicated that a κ value derived in situ (using suitable reference
instrumentation) would lead to the most accurate correction relative to
co-located reference instruments. Applying a κ values from the literature in the
correction factor also resulted in improved OPC-N2 performance, with the measurements being within 50 % of the reference values. Therefore, for areas where suitable reference
instrumentation for developing a local correction factor is lacking, using a
literature κ value can result in a reasonable correction. For
locations with low levels of hygroscopic aerosols and low RH values, a simple
calibration against gravimetric measurements (using suitable reference
instrumentation) would likely be sufficient. Whilst this study generated
correction factors specific for the Alphasense OPC-N2 sensor, the
calibration methodology developed is likely amenable to other low-cost PM
sensors.


Whether a programmer with code or a potter with clay, practitioners engage in an ongoing process of working and reasoning with materials. Existing discussions in HCI have provided rich accounts of these practices and processes, which we synthesize into three themes: (1) reciprocal discovery of goals and materials, (2) local knowledge of materials, and (3) annotation for holistic interpretation. We then apply these design principles generatively to the domain of version control to present Quickpose: a version control system for creative coding. In an in-situ, longitudinal study of Quickpose guided by our themes, we collected usage data, version history, and interviews. Our study explored our participants' material interaction behaviors and the initial promise of our proposed measures for recognizing these behaviors. Quickpose is an exploration of version control as material interaction, using existing discussions to inform domain-specific concepts, measures, and designs for version control systems.


The use of auctions in procurement results in price reduction as well as the reduction in the cost and the time required to complete transactions. In many situations, price-only auctions resulted in the violation of the contracts or even contractors' bankruptcies. This is one reason for the introduction of multi-attribute auctions as well as auctions-followed-by negotiations. Auction theory is based on two assumptions which assure that auctions are efficient mechanisms, guarantee efficient solutions, and produce the best possible results for bid-takers. In practice these assumptions are often violated. The contribution of this paper is to propose a procedure for auctions-followed-by negotiations which retains important auction features such as process transparency and efficiency while allowing for increased social welfare. The unique feature of the procedure is the introduction of the win-win phase in which the market participants may attempt to make joint improvements to efficient solutions obtained from auctions.


The 2019/20 forest fires in eastern Australia, referred to as the 'Black Summer' fires, burned over 5.8 million hectares of mainly temperate broadleaf forest between September 2019 and February 2020. Twenty-six people lost their lives as a direct consequence of the fires, while bushfire smoke is estimated to have caused 417 excess deaths in the fire-affected regions. Nearly 2,500 homes were lost and widespread damage to infrastructure and livelihoods has severely affected communities and regional economies. The fires killed millions of animals, burned critical habitat of endangered species and large fractions of threatened ecological communities, including significant areas of temperate rain forests. While the true impact of the 'Black Summer' fires may never be fully quantified, several formal inquiries have investigated the causes and factors that contributed to the fire season of 2019/20. The final report of the New South Wales Bushfire Inquiry was published in July 2020, with major contributions from the NSW Bushfire Risk Management Research Hub.
Here, I address three questions that have been at the core of the inquiry and the ongoing debate about fire risk management in SE Australia: i) to what extent were the Black Summer fires consistent with historical fire regimes in the region and with fire regimes of temperate forests globally? ii) what was the role of fuel loads versus fuel dryness in preconditioning the landscape for mega forest fires? iii) have fuel reduction treatments been effective in reducing fire extent, severity, or risk to communities?


Numerical models are important for modeling what happens in porous media. In this thesis we will simulate the heat transport in geothermal reservoirs. Because these reservoirs are usually quite large, we will make a model that upgrids the ne scale reservoir into a coarser scale reservoir that has a smaller amount of grid cells. We will look at upgridding based on di erent indicators; Cartesian, permeability, velocity and time of ight. We need to upscale the energy equation so we can solve it in regards to temperature on the coarse grid. We will investigate what happens when we have a convection dominated heat transport, a di usion dominated heat transport, and also what happens in between when we have a mix of both.