In his book The Celluloid Closet Vito Russo argues: "It is an old stereotype that homosexuality has to do only with sex while heterosexuality is multi-faceted and embraces love and romance." (1987:p.132). In an attempt to redress this I embarked, many years ago, on a project to queer iconic heterosexual love stories. My intention was to demonstrate that love affairs between men can be as rich, as complex and as romantic as those between men and women, even if they are intrinsically different. In this essay I will examine the process of creating the most recent of these – a contemporary screen version of the story immortalised by Puccini in his opera Madama Butterfly. This was the artefact for my PhD by practice, completed in 2016, entitled Emancipating 'Madame Butterfly': Intention and Process in Adapting and Queering a Text. The adaptation required me to remediate what had been a novella, a play, an opera and a musical into a screenplay, with all the attendant issues, as well as to relocate it from the 19th century to the 21st. But the most profound change came from the queering process. With two men now loving each other the heteronormative mould which constrains the original story was broken, and the consequences of this were far more pervasive than simply changing the gender and sexual identity of the protagonists. Making the love affair homosexual also presented problems, not least the requirement for there to be an offspring from the relationship. But in those very problems lay opportunities which, in the end, led to a complete change of theme as well as context. For example, in the original the 15-year-old Butterfly asks her older lover Pinkerton to 'love her like a father' (1904:Act 1), but this theme is not explored further. In my version I was able to move this to the centre and explore the frustrated paternal instincts which sometimes lie behind relationships between older and younger men. So, whilst the story remains a child of its parents, it has its own life in its new context With reference to Queer Theory, as well as to Pearce and Wisker's (1998) concept of 'romantic subversion' and D.H.Hwang's utterly subversive version of the story, M.Butterfly (1989), I will argue that queering is a profoundly liberating kind of adaptation with a real power to enlarge and to enrich a text.


Long Range (LoRa) is a low-power wireless communication technology for long-range connectivity, extensively used in the Internet of Things. Several works in the literature have analytically characterized the performance of LoRa networks, with particular focus on scalability and reliability. However, most of the related models are limited, as they cannot account for factors that occur in practice, or make strong assumptions on how devices are deployed in the network. This article proposes an analytical model that describes the delivery ratio in a LoRa network with device-level granularity. Specifically, it considers the impact of several key factors that affect real deployments, including multiple gateways and channel variation. Therefore, the proposed model can effectively evaluate the delivery ratio in realistic network topologies, without any restrictions on device deployment or configuration. It also accurately characterizes the delivery ratio of each device in a network, as demonstrated by extensive simulations in a wide variety of conditions, including diverse networks in terms of node deployment and link-level parameter settings. The proposed model provides a level of detail that is not available in the state of the art, and it matches the simulation results within an error of a few percentage points.


Current EU patent packageSince 1977, the European Patent Office (EPO) has provided a centralised procedure to grant patents. Today a patentee can apply to 38 countries that have signed the European Patent Convention (EPC). The current 'classical' European patent granted by the EPO is not a unitary title; it confers a bundle of national patents, which, if litigated, are dealt with before corresponding national courts. Against that background it has long been a goal of a particular sector of intellectual property stakeholders to create a 'true' EU patent that exists in all Member States and can be invalidated in one hearing for the whole of Europe. To some this is attractive, but it comes with a big risk. The unitary patent could be revoked in a single action before the new court, meaning that it could potentially be more vulnerable than the current 'classical' European patents, which have to be attacked at a national level, one by one.What are the unitary patent and the Unified Patent Court?The 'European patent with unitary effect' ('unitary patent' for short) is a single patent that will cover all participating Member States of the European Union (EU). It has been proposed that, like the current 'classical' European patent, the unitary patent will also be granted by the EPO and will be a single patent that will cover all participating Member States of the EU. Consequently, some EPC countries will remain outside the unitary patent because they are not EU members.It is envisaged that European patent applications will be used to obtain either a 'classical' European patent, or a unitary patent. Under this arrangement, there will be no change whatsoever for searching, examination and grant at the EPO. On grant of the European patent, the applicant will have the choice of whether to obtain the usual bundle of national patents or go for unitary protection. The deadline for requesting the registration of unitary effect will be one month after grant. Renewal fees will then be payable to the EPO on an annual basis. Exactly what level the renewal fees will be set at is not known, but the legislation provides for the renewal fees to be calculated on the basis of an 'average' European patent, which experts agree is one that designates protection in four or five Member States.The EU patent package consists of two regulations on the unitary patent together with the Agreement on the Unified Patent Court (UPC). The two regulations on unitary patent protection will not be fully applicable until the Agreement on the UPC enters into force, and in any case not earlier than 1 January 2014. The agreement was signed on 19 February 2013 and will enter into force as soon as 13 states, including France, Germany and the United Kingdom, have ratified it.The unitary patent: who's in, and who's out...Currently, all EU Member States have agreed to take part in the unitary patent, except Spain, Italy and Poland. No one knows when countries will ratify the legislation, however. This means that it is difficult to determine the actual coverage of unitary patents, and it is likely to change over time. At the outset the 'classical' European patent is available for all contracting states of the EPC. The EU includes 27 countries (shown in light grey on Figure 1) whereas a total of 38 countries have signed the EPC (which includes those in black) ; therefore, a 'classical' European patent can be obtained in a total of 13 countries that are not part of the EU.Unitary patent: how will it work?A unitary patent can be revoked by the Opposition Division or the boards of appeal of the EPO, in the same way a classical European patent can. It can also be revoked or limited by an amendment of the claims, by the patent holder in a limitation or revision procedure before the EPO according to Article 105(a) of the EPC.Initially, the unitary patent gives applicants the option to choose the unitary effect or a classical European patent for the states that do not participate in enhanced cooperation, such as Italy, Norway, Spain and Switzerland. …


All research at Dutch universities is assessed on a regular basis following the Standard Evaluation Protocol (SEP). From 2015 onwards, one of the protocol's criteria for measuring research success is the societal impact of the research. As traditional metrics do not provide an indication of public reach and influence, the African Studies Centre in Leiden (ASCL) decided to experiment with the new suite of alternative metrics – altmetrics – that measure the number of times a research output is viewed, downloaded or mentioned online. I analyzed the presence of altmetric indicators in 148 publications using Altmetric.com and evaluated the content that Altmetric.com tracked. This paper describes the ASCL Altmetric experiment and reports on its results.


This paper aims at propounding oblivion as the real excuse for the ever-present suffering in oblivious human relations. Oblivion as selfishness intensifier is a move away from self-care which is going to be defined via David Foster Wallace's narrative of Oblivion. Tracing the trajectory of phenomenological existentialism of Sartre and Heidegger as well as zen-like demeanor of Wallace will facilitate this study. The researchers are going to find the answer to this issue that how 'self' can neutralize the world malignancy with recourse to the therapeutic manner of literature? Human carelessness has direct relation with the quality of their soul weakness and can intensify weltschmerz. This study signifies that in human relations, oblivious humans throw their life drama on the other and this drama llama pressurizes even an authentic human to be surrounded by one's own and other's pseudo self. The circle of human relationship will be tainted with the dominant presence of humans with the syndrome of histrionic personality disorder whose soul craves for rebelliousness. Therefore, human beings must go through the requirement of a strong soul to experience the full appreciation of life with compliancy. Wallace intends that Weltschmerz of oblivion as the source and origin of dehumanization will control human destiny ad infinitum and will culminate in their deadly living which disables them of being neuter


Abstract. Various machine learning methods were attempted in the global mapping of surface ocean partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) to reduce the uncertainty of global ocean CO2 sink estimate due to undersampling of pCO2. In previous researches the predicators of pCO2 were usually selected empirically based on theoretic drivers of surface ocean pCO2 and same combination of predictors were applied in all areas unless lack of coverage. However, the differences between the drivers of surface ocean pCO2 in different regions were not considered. In this work, we combined the stepwise regression algorithm and a Feed Forward Neural Network (FFNN) to selected predicators of pCO2 based on mean absolute error in each of the 11 biogeochemical provinces defined by Self-Organizing Map (SOM) method. Based on the predicators selected, a monthly global 1° × 1° surface ocean pCO2 product from January 1992 to August 2019 was constructed. Validation of different combination of predicators based on the SOCAT dataset version 2020 and independent observations from time series stations was carried out. The prediction of pCO2 based on region-specific predicators selected by the stepwise FFNN algorithm were more precise than that based on predicators from previous researches. Appling of a FFNN size improving algorithm in each province decreased the mean absolute error (MAE) of global estimate to 11.32 μatm and the root mean square error (RMSE) to 17.99 μatm. The script file of the stepwise FFNN algorithm and pCO2 product are distributed through the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Marine Science Data Center (IOCAS; http://dx.doi.org/10.12157/iocas.2021.0022, Zhong et al., 2021).


A COMPARATIVE APPROACH TO RACIAL STEREOTYPING IN SOUTH AFRICA AND THE UNITED STATES AND HOW IT HAS OBLITERATED THE BLACK IMAGE Maylat Tedla Eyob Old Dominion University, 2020 Director: Professor Peter Schulman There has been a long fight to dehumanize the black body and hinder the black mind through the power to enact individual, institutional, and cultural racism. Medical experiments of the past have occurred as a result of the belief that blacks are intellectually inferior, and, in a sense, a different species. There also has been an implementation of birth control strategies in the United States of America in order to exterminate this supposed "diseugenic", or un-divine, race. Similarly, South Africa has had abortion laws with the goal being to increase white birth rates, and it not only did that, but black women also bore the consequences of illegal and unsafe abortions due to the high cost. Furthermore, individual racism, or scientific racism, has a long history, and has seeped into the modern day bias of health assessment, and gave birth to iatrophobiaan abnormal or irrational fear of going to the doctorsamongst blacks all around the world. From the exclusion of the black women's voice due to "white" feminism in both America and South Africa, to the detrimental effects of gentrification on blacks, these two share many of the same issues in regards to filtering out the black image. Finally, cultural racism in both America and South Africa has, with stereotypes in art and media, successfully filtered the black image, and has done so with the help of the black community. However, if we acknowledge this goal of filtering the black image, then the United States of America and South Africa will be able to wholly progress as a society.


The first 8 books of a new range (The World Of...), covering core curriculum topics in KS3 English, Maths, Science and French. Ideas are placed within the context of real-life scenarios to make the topics relevant and interesting. At Year 7, the contexts are introduced by four characters, whilst at Year 9 they use real-life examples to make the topics relevant and memorable. This approach reflects the emphasis in schools towards more contextualized-learning, i.e. learning about things within a relevant situation. Engaging, full-colour, content-rich spreads also include 'top tips' and 'did you know' features at Year 7, whilst at Year 9 there are 'examiner's tips' and 'key fact' panels to help prepare students for end of year 9 SATs. There are also end of section revision spreads, comprising a mixture of short answer and structured questions to recap and revise what's been learnt so far.


Carbon fibre reinforced SiC (Cf /SiC) as a promising high temperature structural material possesses broad prospects for aeronautical and astronautical applications. Joining technique is very important from both technical and economical points of view. Joining of Cf/SiC to itself has been realized by reaction joining process using a preceramic polymer, polysilazane, as joining material (welding compound). The weld strength of joints is strongly affected by joining temperature and number of times of reinforcement, which comprises infiltration and pyrolysis of polysilazane. Samples were joined at temperatures ranging from 1100oC -1400oC. The maximum weld strength of joints is obtained at 1250oC. The reinforcement can remarkably increase the weld strength of joints. After three times of reinforcement the shearing strength of joints reaches 27.78MPa. Microstructural study and phase analysis reveal that the joining material has transformed into an amorphous ceramic interlayer composed of Si, C and N at 1100~1250oC, which is uniform and densified. The thickness of the interlayer is 2-3µm. The contact at the interfaces is good without obvious cracks and pores. The amorphous ceramic interlayer transforms into crystal SiC and Si3N4 at 1400oC.


Studies were initiated to determine the release behavior of Cryptosporidium oocysts and Giardia cysts from dairy calf manure to waters of various salinities. Experiments were conducted by sprinkling a particular aqueous solution over a manure disk and collecting the runoff water. Effluent concentrations of manure and (oo)cysts were initially several orders of magnitude below their starting concentration in the manure, after continued application of water the concentrations gradually decreased, and then exhibited persistent concentration tailing. Solution salinity significantly affected the shape and magnitude of the manure and (oo)cyst concentration curves. Increases in solution salinity tended to decrease the manure and (oo)cyst concentrations at a particular time. This was attributed to a stabilization of manure by compression of the double layer thickness between negatively charged components of the manure phase. Calculated release efficiencies of the (oo)cysts (relative to manure release) also decreased with increasing solution salinity. Experimental observations indicate that onlythe surface layer of manure was depleted of finer manure materials and (oo)cysts and that the manure will act as a long-term source of contamination. A conceptual model to describe and predict manure and (oo)cyst release rates and cumulative loading for the various solution salinities was proposed and applied to the experimental data. The calibrated model yielded a reasonable description of the experimental results.


Cellulose and its derivatives are used as potential matrices for biomaterials and tissue engineering applications. The objective of present research was to investigate the influence of biofield treatment on physical, chemical and thermal properties of ethyl cellulose (EC) and methyl cellulose (MC). The study was performed in two groups (control and treated). The control group remained as untreated, and biofield treatment was given to treated group. The biofield treated polymers are characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), CHNSO analysis, X-ray diffraction study (XRD), Differential Scanning calorimetry (DSC), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). FT-IR analysis of treated EC showed downward shifting in C-O-C stretching peak from 1091→1066 cm-1 with respect to control. However, the treated MC showed upward shifting of –OH stretching (3413→3475) and downward shifting in C-O stretching (1647→1635 cm-1) vibrations with respect to control MC. CHNSO analysis showed substantial increase in percent hydrogen and oxygen in treated polymers with respect to control. XRD diffractogram of EC and MC affirmed the typical semi-crystalline nature. The crystallite size was substantially increased by 20.54% in treated EC with respect to control. However, the treated MC showed decrease in crystallite by 61.59% with respect to control. DSC analysis of treated EC showed minimal changes in crystallization temperature with respect to control sample. However, the treated and control MC did not show any crystallization temperature in the samples. TGA analysis of treated EC showed increase in thermal stability with respect to control. However, the TGA thermogram of treated MC showed reduction in thermal stability as compared to control. Overall, the result showed substantial alteration in physical, chemical and thermal properties of treated EC and MC.


Dermal exposures to chemical mixtures can potentially increase or decrease systemic bioavailability of toxicants in the mixture. Changes in dermal permeability can be attributed to changes in physicochemical interactions between the mixture, the skin, and the solute of interest. These physicochemical interactions can be described as changes in system coefficients associated with molecular descriptors described by Abraham's linear solvation energy relationship (LSER). This study evaluated the effects of chemical mixtures containing either a solvent (ethanol) or a surfactant (sodium lauryl sulfate, SLS) on solute permeability and partitioning by quantifying changes in system coefficients in skin and a three-membrane-coated fiber (MCF) system, respectively. Regression analysis demonstrated that changes in system coefficients in skin were strongly correlated ( R2 = 0.89-0.98) to changes in system coefficients in the three-membrane MCF array with mixtures containing either 1% SLS or 50% ethanol. The PDMS fiber appeared to play a significant role (R2 = 0.84-0.85) in the MCF array in predicting changes in solute permeability, while the WAX fiber appeared to contribute less (R2 = 0.59-0.77) to the array than the other two fibers. On the basis of changes in system coefficients that are part of a LSER, these experiments were able to link physicochemical interactions in the MCF with those interactions in skin when either system is exposed to 1% SLS or 50% ethanol. These experiments further demonstrated the utility of a MCF array to adequately predict changes in dermal permeability when skin is exposed to mixtures containing either a surfactant or a solvent and provide some insight into the nature of the physiochemical interactions that modulate dermal absorptions.


In this article, we apply an impressive method for solving linear optimal control problem based on cubic B-spline quasi-interpolation. Hamilton-Jacobi equation are applied to linear optimal control problem convert to systems of first-order equations. The main idea of our scheme is approximation derivative with cubic B-spline quasi-interpolation. This method is straightforward, without restrictive assumptions.The results of scheme are made in pleasant agreement with analytic solutions. The accuracy of the proposed method is demonstrated by absolute error. Our scheme is simple to implement because its algorithm is easy and it's one of the advantages of the proposed method.


This project adopts the concept of a dance diagram such as Andy Warhol's Fox Trot (1962) introduced by Rosalind Krauss in her writing on the relationship of material forces in a diagrammatic structure to create a model of notation with actions and objects derived from Edgelands. Coined by Marion Shoard, Edgelands are post-industrial cityscapes, a typology of abandon, dereliction and decay. Shoard notes these sites are characterized by creative cultural practices of photography and graffiti; urban explorers, parkour. My Blubilds project aimed to challenge these cultural practices of parkour and graffiti to provoke new engagement in those sites. To this end, I apply the concept of Rosalind Krauss's resistant diagram and gravity I adapted from Formless: A User's Guide (). Gravity is a force of undoing to remake spaces – and I draw with my body and equipment to facilitate gravity within a dance diagram to create a new space. This contrasts the cultural practices such as Graffiti and parkour and breaks with those existing activities to tag, mark and leave a new trace in Edgelands. Blubilds draw a live embodied diagram, based on the movement patterns found in Edgeland sites, since 'action' is to draw a line with the body. Tim Ingold's approach to drawing informs my perspective that lines of movement that draw (in) place engage with the lived narratives of those places. Ingold suggests that the narratives that make place are created by entangled lines created by movement; furthermore, to 'draw out' – as in Douglas phrase – suggests that drawing in place 'draws-out' new spaces. Blue is emblematic as a nod to Krauss's 'rude noise, the blueprint and the acts of Graffiti', it becomes Blubilds – a dynamic diagrammatic stain.


Background: This paper presents an analysis of the English experience of setting and monitoring targets during the 1990s. It draws on two studies of the former national public health strategy, 'Health of the Nation' (HOTN). Methods: the two evaluations conducted 16 case studies between them, two in each health region in England. Over 250 individual and group interviews were conducted and over 400 documents were analysed. In eight health authorities, an analysis of expenditure was also carried out to determine what impact, if any, HOTN had on resource allocation. Results: Full results are published elsewhere. Lessons for the new strategy are as follows: i) the role of central government is key in ensuring that there is a consistent message across government in support of the health strategy and in fostering the development and dissemination of an evidence-base for public health, ii) The new strategy needs to address the underlying social and structural determinants of health and health inequalities directly, iii) Both studies found widespread support for targets as a helpful way to prioritise and focus efforts. However, national targets must be credible i.e. based on sound and convincing evidence. The development of local targets needs to be encouraged, and process targets should supplement outcomes locally and nationally, iv) The new strategy needs to be communicated widely – to broaden ownership outside the National Health Service, and include the public, v) To sustain momentum and ensure effective implementation, the strategy must be embedded in the performance management framework for health and local authorities, vi) Partnerships between key local agencies to work together for health need to be encouraged, either via a statutory framework or with other incentives. Discussion: The new English strategy, 'Saving Lives', is outlined in relation to the development of targets. The wider issues of a target-based approach to health policy include: i) Importance of distinguishing between the objective to ensure that policy is directed towards the achievement of health outcomes, and monitoring progress to ensure that health policy objectives are being achieved, ii) The role of targets as an inspiration as well as or instead of a management tool, iii) A target-based health policy should: set targets which are realistic, achievable and challenging; involve stakeholders; link targets to implementation; consider technical issues e.g. small numbers, availability of data; be based on evidence; express targets in terms of health improvement, iv) Target-based health policies should avoid: perverse incentives; distortion of data; too many targets; target setting without resources, v) The experience from England provides lessons for other European countries introducing a target-based approach to health policy.


Joint networks hosted in successively younger rocks, developing as a result of forced (trishear) folding of a rock mass above a deep-seated fault, can be used to infer the reactivation history of that deep-seated fault. This study aims to use joint networks in Pennsylvanian, Permian and Cretaceous rocks to document evidence of reactivation on basement faults during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic of Nebraska and Kansas. The most prominent basement features in southeast Nebraska and northeast Kansas are oriented NE-SW, likely related to the Midcontinent Rift System and Nemaha Uplift, and oriented NW-SE, likely related to fabrics from the Central Plains Orogeny. These features are well defined in the potential fields data. Joint patterns in the study area show an E-W oriented trend, as well as clearly discernable NE-SW and subsidiary N-S and NW-SE trends. The E-W trend is interpreted to be related to far-field stresses from Laramide and Ancestral Rocky Mountain orogenic events, whilst the NE-SW trend is interpreted to be related to subtle reactivation on the Mid-continent rift and related faults, observed in basement data. These movements produced stresses of sufficient magnitude to produce joints in the post-rift rock units, but not sufficient to generate shear fractures. Similarly, the ~N-S and NW-SE joint trends are taken as evidence of subtle reactivation on the Nemaha Uplift and Central Plains Orogeny systems, generating joints by the formation of forced folds. This contribution therefore provides a convincing case study of the value of coupled potential fields and surface feature studies in discerning buried tectonic trends and subtle reactivation thereon.


The efficiency of the corporate bond market is not well understood. Although many of the factors used to analyze stock market efficiency translate with some adjustments to corporate bond markets, the cause-effect factor is not intuitive and can be a source of significant confusion. In this manuscript we analyze bond market efficiency in the context of a recent court decision. In recent litigation concerning allegations of securities fraud perpetrated by the American International Group (AIG), the federal district court for the Southern District of New York declined to certify a class of bondholders, citing lack of common questions of law or fact. The decision turned on an empirical analysis of whether certain AIG bonds traded in an open, developed and efficient market. If the market for these bonds had been found efficient, there would have been grounds to certify the bondholders as a class. Ironically, the court found insufficient empirical evidence to hold that the $1.71 billion in AIG bonds, issued by the world's largest insurance company, traded in efficient markets. Unfortunately, the AIG court missed salient differences between the stock and bond markets in reaching its conclusion. Our manuscript describes the analysis missed by the court and supports a contrary result. Part I provides an overview of the law as it has developed regarding certification of class actions and the elements of a claim of fraud on the market as relevant to the lead plaintiffs' claims of violations of the securities laws. Part II introduces the required empirical analysis and benchmarks to evaluate a claim of fraud on the market. Part III continues with a theoretical discussion of the distinctions missing in the AIG analysis between bonds and stocks relevant to determining whether the bond market should be afforded the fraud on the market presumption. Part IV builds on this with a discussion of our alternate empirical analyses. Concluding remarks follow.The AIG decision has serious implications not only for the corporate bond market but also for public policy. Private securities fraud class actions are an important mechanism for deterring fraud and promoting confidence in the securities markets. When market efficiency is important for determining certification of a class of security holders, it is critical that courts carefully consider how different markets operate.


The Coronavirus pandemic has caused significant disruption and change in most aspects of society, and there are concerns that disabled people may be particularly disadvantaged. This article, written by disabled activists and non‐disabled allies, shares data extrapolated from focus groups regarding the lived experiences of twelve disabled people and disability allies during the Covid‐19 pandemic, eleven of whom were based in the UK, and one based in Iraq. We describe the key issues and learning points from this data, arguing that the measures taken by the government and organisations to protect the public during the pandemic have instead brought to the fore long‐standing ableist narratives regarding which bodies are valuable in society. This ableist agenda has acted to control and silence the voices of disabled people by objectifying disability and defining "pre‐existing health conditions" as being more expendable, and therefore less worthy of attention during the pandemic. In presenting our position for change and call to action, we will argue that it is only when disabled people's experiences and voices are heard in decision‐making that policymakers can begin to learn from the inequalities that have been demonstrated through the pandemic. Here, we will introduce our Wellcome Trust‐funded "We Are the People" Disability Research Collective programme (2021–2026). This programme develops a new disability activist‐led research network, whereby disabled people can conduct research into topics that are important to them.


We investigated the time-course involved in the conversion of mouse blood monocytes in vitro in cells capable of anchorage-independent growth. Two criteria were used to define when monocytes were fully converted to cells similar to mononuclear phagocytes present in inflammatory exudate, such as thioglycollate medium (TM)-elicited peritoneal exudate. They were the production of high levels of plasminogen activators and an ability to undergo anchorage-independent growth. Resident peritoneal macrophages were used as controls and for comparison. Our studies indicated that monocytes, but not resident peritoneal macrophages, could be converted to cells similar to TM- elicited mononuclear phagocytes after 2 d in culture.


This bibliography lists 292 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in July 1978.


This article examines issues affecting the offshore oil and gas business in the Canadian Arctic. It begins by discussing the impact of international conventions and the roles of the international organizations that administer them, or have direct interests in the Arctic. It then addresses the implications of Canadian sovereignty, relevant legislation, land claim agreements with Aboriginal groups, and Aboriginal cases currently before the Supreme Court of Canada. It concludes with thoughts and speculations concerning the possible futures for offshore oil and gas development in the north.


In 1983, Clive Sinclair (b. 1948) was named one of Granta's twenty 'Best of Young British Novelists'. He is the author of four collections of short stories: Hearts of Gold (1979), Bedbugs (1982) and The Lady with the Laptop and Other Stories (1996), which have won – or been short-listed for – literary prizes, including the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award, the Dylan Thomas Award and the PEN Silver Pen. His latest collection, Death & Texas, was published by Peter Halban in February 2014 and long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. As well as those books he has produced ten others, among them the novels Bibliosexuality (1973), Blood Libels (1985), Cosmetic Effects (1989), Augustus Rex (1992) and Meet the Wife (2002), as well as a biography of The Brothers Singer (1983) and a travel book, Diaspora Blues: A View of Israel (1987). Sinclair's idiosyncratic work largely defies easy categorization, yet it is suffused with Jewish concerns; it is arresting, provocative and unapologetic as well as tragically farcical. His is an important voice in British Jewish literature which has always resisted the lure of cheap conformity.


In relativistic laser plasma interaction, electrons can be simultaneously accelerated and wiggled in an ion cavity created in the wake of an intense short pulse laser propagating in an underdense plasma. As a consequence of their motion, the accelerated electrons emit an intense x-ray beam called laser produced betatron radiation. Being an emission from charged particles, the features of the betatron source are directly linked to the electrons trajectories. In particular, the radiation is emitted in the direction of the electrons velocity. In this article we show how an image of electrons orbits in the wakefield cavity can be deduced from the structure of x-ray spatial profiles.


This study provides an analysis of the U.S. market for Special Purpose Acquisition Corporations (SPACs) starting with a description of how the investment vehicles are structured, provides a brief history, explains the purpose that they serve in the IPO market, and documents the sizeable growth of the industry. The analysis provides various descriptive statistics such as the pricing structure, 1st year returns, 1st day returns, trading volume, size, and trust amounts. Lastly, we examine the relationship between the warrant price, share price, and other SPAC variables using regression models.


Undertaking research with young people presents an array of methodological challenges. We report the findings from a qualitative study that took place alongside a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) prevalence study among detainees in Australia. Of 38 participants, 27 were Aboriginal youth. Interviews were conducted using "social yarning" and "research topic yarning," an Indigenous research method which allows for data collection in an exploratory, culturally safe way. A complex interplay emerged between social yarning and research topic yarning which provided a space to explore responsively with participants their experiences of FASD assessments. Flexibility, including language adaptation and visual descriptions about assessments, was utilized to assist participants recall and retell their experiences. There were, however, challenges in gathering data on the assessment experiences of some participants. We describe how employing a "yarning" method for collecting data could benefit children and young people undergoing neurodevelopmental assessments in the future.


We characterize the statistical length distribution of vortex strings by studying the nonperturbative thermodynamics of scalar U(1) field theory in 3D. All parameters characterizing the length distributions exhibit critical behavior at Tc and we measure their associated critical exponents. Moreover, we show that vortex strings are generally self-seeking at finite temperature and that there exists a natural separation between long strings and small loops based on their spatial correlation behavior.


Piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducers for airborne and immersed applications working in the frequency range from 20 kHz in liquid to 750 kHz in air have been fabricated and characterized, as well as simulated by finite element modelling. The basic element consisted of a oxidized and platinized silicon membrane coated with a 2 μm thick (100)-textured Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (PZT) thin film deposited by sol-gel techniques. SOI wafers have been applied to obtain a good definition of the silicon part of the membrane. The unclamping of the silicon membrane at the border increases drastically the coupling factor. For unclamped structures the membranes completely covered with top electrode show the highest coupling coefficient (k2 = 5.6%). Immersed (in Fluorinert™) membranes show 7 times smaller quality factor, while the coupling factor k2 remains the same. The obtained structures were enough sensitive to detect acoustic waves in air and in liquid emitted from the same type of elements at a distance of 20 and 2 cm, respectively. Good agreement between the experimental results (membrane deflection, admittance in air and in liquid) and FEA simulations has been obtained.


This paper addresses the problem of reliable transmission of sensed data through a vast field of small and vulnerable sensors towards a sink node. We concentrate in this paper on networks deployed rapidly in harsh environments as needed for instance in disaster-relief scenarios. Hence, emphasis has to be put on the minimization of the global energy consumption of the network and on providing both fast data transmissions and a rapid network setup. Therefore, we introduce a new gradient broadcasting routing algorithm for wireless sensor networks, U-GRAB, where the broadcasting decision is taken according to a utility-based policy. This policy favors the broadcasting of packets for nodes that experience non-congested channels and have a satisfactory energy level. Our simulation results show that this new forwarding strategy greatly improves the robustness/energy/delay trade-off of GRAB, the current state-of the art solution in gradient broadcasting techniques.


Abstract How well does the theory of the firm explain the choice between intrafirm and arm's-length trade? This paper uses firm-level import data from France to look into this question. We find support for three key predictions of property rights theories of the multinational firm. Intrafirm imports are more likely in capital- and skill-intensive firms, in highly productive firms, and from countries with well-functioning judicial institutions. We bridge previous aggregate findings with our investigation by decomposing intrafirm imports into an extensive and intensive margin and uncover interesting patterns in the data that require further theoretical investigation.


Remote sensing archaeology in recent years has emphasized the use of high-precision and high-accuracy tools to achieve the detailed documentation of archaeological elements (drones, LIDAR, etc.). Satellite remote sensing has also benefited from an increase in the spatial and spectral resolution of the sensors, which is enabling the discovery and documentation of new archaeological features and sites worldwide. While there can be no doubt that a great deal is being gained via such "site detection" approaches, there still remains the possibility of further exploring remote sensing methods to analyse archaeological problems. In this paper, this issue is discussed by focusing on one common archaeological topic: the mapping of environmental resources used in the past and, in particular, the procurement of lithic raw material by hunter-gatherer groups. This is illustrated by showing how the combined use of Landsat 8 images and "ground-truthing" via focused field studies has allowed the identification of a number of potential chert sources, the major lithic resource used by coastal groups between 11,500–1,500 cal. BP, in a vast area of the Atacama Desert covering 22,500 km2. Besides discussing the case study, the strength of remote sensing techniques in addressing archaeological questions comprising large spatial scales is highlighted, stressing the key role they can play in the detection and study of specific environmental resources within challenging physical settings.


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Abstract The fruits of the extinct genus Hemitrapa Miki (Trapaceae) are described from the Miocene Shanwang Formation, representing its first fossil record in the Cenozoic of China. Bearing a fusiform, relatively small fruit body with a very long stalk and four sub-equal, strongly ascending, horn-like arms, the Chinese fossil fruits are described as H. shanwangensis Q. Wang new species. Prior to this discovery, a dispersed, trapaceous pollen Sporotrapoidites erdtmanii (Nagy) Nagy was documented from the same formation. Recent paleobotanical and palynological studies in Europe demonstrated that Hemitrapa was closely related to S. erdtmanii, so the co-occurrence of Hemitrapa fruits and S. erdtmanii pollen at Shanwang implies that they may stem from the same parental plant population. Hemitrapa fruits have been widely recognized from the Miocene of mid-latitudes in France, Austria, the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, Russia, Korea, Japan and the U.S.A. as well as from the late Oligocene–Miocene of Germany and the late Eocene of the Czech Republic. In contrast, dispersed S. erdtmanii pollen has been recovered from the Miocene in central Europe as well as from the late Eocene to the Pliocene of eastern Asiatic shelf basins near the Bohai Sea, Yellow Sea, East China Sea, and the Sea of Japan. Overall, the microfossil and macrofossil records demonstrate that the parental plants of Hemitrapa might have begun to diversify from the mid-latitudes of Eurasia since the Eocene, flourished in eastern Asia and Central Europe during the Miocene, and become extinct after the Pliocene.


Application of microbial stress to soybean during germination induces the accumulation of phytoalexins, which have many health benefits. In this study, the effects of stress induced by Aspergillus oryzae on the phytochemical composition of germinating soybeans were investigated, and their radical scavenging activity was compared with those of ungerminated (US) and germinated (GS) soybeans. Additionally, the antioxidant activity of coumestrol, a soybean phytoalexin, against hydrogen peroxide-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) was investigated in HepG2 cells. A. oryzae exposure significantly decreased the total isoflavone content and induced coumestrol and glyceollin I. A. oryzae-challenged germinated soybeans exhibited the highest radical scavenging activity (IC(50) = 0.55 mg/mL) as compared to US and GS. Coumestrol exhibited significantly higher radical scavenging activity than daidzein and genistein. Furthermore, coumestrol significantly prevented hydrogen peroxide-induced ROS production and lipid peroxidation and inhibited decreases in cell viability, intracellular glutathione (GSH) levels, and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity. These results indicate that using food-grade A. oryzae to elicit the biosynthesis of phytoalexins alters the secondary metabolite profiles of the soybeans and offers enhanced bioactivity of soybean as a functional food ingredient.


Many existing cities in the world were not built according to population of cars. Therefore drivers find it difficult to park their car on crowded streets and to turn in small spaces. However it is possible to design cars to suit traffic conditions of the cities. Two wheel steering system has a drawback of demanding wide area because of comparatively larger turning radius. Currently most cars are using traditional steering system, but this system is difficult comparing to parallel parking method. Zero turning radius helps the vehicle rotating about an axis passing through the centre of gravity of vehicle rather than describing a circular path as in conventional turning. The aim of this research is to develop a combined mechanism of parallel parking, zero turn radius, minimum turning and traditional turning for automobiles. All the parts of the steering system are designed so as to meet all the configuration of steering system and to be well-matched to the power train, suspension system and body of the car. The steering system is designed for the car which is designed and manufactured at Bahir Dar Institute of Technology, Bahir Dar University which has the overall dimension of 1200 X 1450mm. After manufacturing of the parts, it had been assembled and ready for testing. The testing results showed that zero turning radius will reduce the turning radius up to 70% and parallel parking also make our life easy and reduce time consumption during parking and to pullout car from traffic jam. Minimum radius turn configuration will reduce the turning radius of vehicle about 36% compare to traditional steering mechanism. Keywords : Steering System Traditional Turning Minimum Turning Radius Zero Turning Radius Parallel Parking


Gonadotropin stimulates protein synthesis and growth in ovarian oocytes. The hormone is also known to modify transfollicular K+ fluxes and is now shown to cause increased intraoocytic K+ activity (aK). The hormone's effect on aK was duplicated by microinjecting K+ salts into oocytes which were incubated in paraffin oil. This treatment mimicked the influence of gonadotropin on both the rate of protein synthesis and the synthesis of specific polypeptides. These findings suggest that gonadotropin-stimulated oocyte growth is attributable largely to the hormone's influence on transfollicular K+ fluxes. They support the hypothesis that the K+ flux and aK changes observed during cell activation are critical in causing subsequent increases in protein synthesis and growth.


This paper considers the composition of small scale planets as seen in the video game Super Mario Galaxy. With an approximate radius for these planets set at 50m, the required density to maintain Earth-like surface gravity is calculated and compared to known super-dense structures such as white-dwarfs. The stability of such a planet is then discussed and it is concluded that it would likely explode due to the severe imbalance of gravitational pressure to degeneracy and coulomb pressures.


OBJECTIVE: To analyze the trends of specific, standardized coefficients of mortality due to ischemic heart disease according to sex and age during the years 1980 and 1994 in the municipality of Goiania, GO, Brazil. METHODS: Data on deaths were retrieved from the Information on Mortality System of the Ministry of Health; population data were obtained from the Foundation of the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE). The trends of the specific coefficients were analyzed by triennia of the historical series, including individuals of both sexes from 25 years of age on, partitioned into 6 age groups of ten years intervals. The population data corresponding to the year 1980 were used as the standard for the calculation of each age group coefficient. Analyses were carried out by straight linear regression. RESULTS: Coefficients were greater for males in each triennium of the series and increased with age in both sexes. The study of the trends of the specific age coefficients of both sexes revealed a stable pattern of evolution up to the age of 65-74 years (P>0.05). From 75 years on, a clear-cut decline in mortality due to ischemic heart disease was shown by both sexes. The standardized coefficients also showed a significant decline (p


Building efficient and correct system power-management strategies relies on efficient power architecture decision making as well as respecting structural dependencies induced by such architecture. Transaction level modelling allows a rapid exploration, verification and evaluation of alternative power-management architectures and strategies. This study introduces an efficient methodology for making system power decisions at transaction level (TL) by adding and verifying power intent and management capabilities into TL models. A generic framework that abstracts relevant concepts of the IEEE 1801 unified power format standard and implements assertion-based contracts is used throughout the methodology. A TL-model example is considered to validate the methodology.


Aim of this paper is to find out the relationship between antioxidant activity of Abutilon indicum Linn and their phytochemical composition especially phenols and flavonols. Successive extractions were carried out for the Abutilon indicum plant with petroleum ether, chloroform, ethyl acetate, n-butanol, ethanol and water. All these extracts were evaluated for their antioxidant activities. Their antioxidant activities were correlated with their total phenol and flavonol content present in the plant. Ethyl acetate showed maximum free radical scavenging activity. IC50 value for various antioxidant methods for all extract showed no significance with total antioxidant capacity except IC50 value of LPO (r2 = 0.7273). Correlation between total antioxidant capacity and total phenolic content was not significant with r2 = 0.2554, P<0.3065. Total antioxidant capacity and total flavonol content showed similar correlation with r2 = 0.2554, P<0.0962.


Works have shown the strong connections between some implicit models and optimization problems. However, explorations on such relationships are limited. Most works pay attention to some common mathematical properties, such as sparsity. In this work, we propose a new type of implicit model inspired by the designing of the systems' hidden objective functions, called the Multi-branch Optimization induced Equilibrium networks (MOptEqs). The model architecture is designed based on modelling the hidden objective function for the multi-resolution recognition task. Furthermore, we also propose a new strategy inspired by our understandings of the hidden objective function. In this manner, the proposed model can better utilize the hierarchical patterns for recognition tasks and retain the abilities for interpreting the whole structure as trying to obtain the minima of the problem's goal. Comparing with the state-of-the-art models, our MOptEqs not only enjoys better explainability but are also superior to MDEQ with less parameter consumption and better performance on practical tasks. Furthermore, we also implement various experiments to demonstrate the effectiveness of our new methods and explore the applicability of the model's hidden objective function. we also propose a new strategy inspired by our understandings of the hidden optimization problem. The empirical results show the advantages of our proposed methods. The success of our HH & D module and PE strategy demonstrates the deep link between the optimization problem and neural architecture and may motivate further explorations.


Two on-farm experiments were conducted in Eastern Zimbabwe`s Chinyika Resettlement Area (180 02" and 180 17" S and 320 09" and 320 24" E), during 2002/2003 rainy season, to evaluate the effects of three grain legumes species, genotypes and cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L.Walp) populations on witchweed (Striga asiatica L Kuntze) emergence, growth, development and maize (Zea mays L.) grain yield. Both experiments were 2*3*3 factorial with three cropping systems being sole cowpeas, maize SC513 cowpea intercrop and maize Pan6363 cowpea intercrops. The cowpea genotypes were Kavara and IT18, while three cowpea populations were 55 000, 65 000 and 75 000 plants ha-1. For experiment 2,. three legume species were soyabean [Glycine max (L.) Merill], cowpea and bambara nut [Vigna subterrenea (L.) Verdc]. The cropping system, cowpea population, and genotypes significantly (P<0.001) affected Striga asiatica emergence across sites during 10 and 12 WACE. A significant interaction was observed between cropping system, genotypes, and cowpea populations. Maize SC513 intercropped with Kavara at 55 000 plants ha-1 caused the highest Striga emergence, with Pan6363 Kavara intercrop at 55 000 plants ha-1 having the lowest emergence. Maize SC513 IT18 intercrop at 55 000 plants ha-1 caused the least emergence while Pan6363 IT18 intercrop at 55 000 plants ha-1 had the highest emergence. A significant effect was observed between the two soyabean varieties, with Maize soyabean variety Magoye having the least emergence compared to Maize soyabean variety Hurungwe.. Across sites, Striga emergence increased and reached peak emergence at 12 WACE, and then declined during 14 WACE within maize legume intercrops. Striga asiatica dry matter accumulation was low and significant (P<0.05) across sites. The cropping system had significant (P<0.05) effect on Striga asiatica days to flowering from emergence. Maize legume intercrops had more days to flowering from emergence. Maize grain yield, cob and maize plant height were negatively and weakly correlated to Striga asiatica emergence. Results indicate that sole legumes suppressed Striga asiatica emergence. Intercrop of cowpea genotype IT18 gave the least Striga asiatica emergence thus have a suppressive effect on to Striga asiatica parasitism. Smallholder farmers in Striga asiatica infested farms should therefore be encouraged to plant sole legumes in rotation with cereal crops to reduce Striga parasitism.


. Relational Concept Analysis [4] is an extension to FCA considering several contexts with relations between them. Often used to ex-tend the knowledge that can be learned with FCA, RCA also meets the issue of combinatorial explosion. The initial specification of RCA implies a monotonic growth of the number of concepts and an exhaustiveness of all the concepts that can be obtained when a fixed point is reached. In this position paper we propose a different specification of RCA that per-mits an interactive exploration of the data by letting the choice of the user for each step. This change will permit to handle richer relational data in a more flexible way by restraining the relations explored at each step hence reducing the number of created concepts.


ABSTRACT The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is an increasingly popular model organism in cardiovascular research. Major insights into cardiac developmental processes have been gained by studies of embryonic zebrafish. However, the utility of zebrafish for modeling adult-onset heart disease has been limited by a lack of robust methods for in vivo evaluation of cardiac function. We established a physiological protocol for underwater zebrafish echocardiography using high frequency ultrasound, and evaluated its reliability in detecting altered cardiac function in two disease models. Serial assessment of cardiac function was performed in wild-type zebrafish aged 3 to 12 months and the effects of anesthetic agents, age, sex and background strain were evaluated. There was a varying extent of bradycardia and ventricular contractile impairment with different anesthetic drugs and doses, with tricaine 0.75 mmol l−1 having a relatively more favorable profile. When compared with males, female fish were larger and had more measurement variability. Although age-related increments in ventricular chamber size were greater in females than males, there were no sex differences when data were normalized to body size. Systolic ventricular function was similar in both sexes at all time points, but differences in diastolic function were evident from 6 months onwards. Wild-type fish of both sexes showed a reliance on atrial contraction for ventricular diastolic filling. Echocardiographic evaluation of adult zebrafish with diphtheria toxin-induced myocarditis or anemia-induced volume overload accurately identified ventricular dilation and altered contraction, with suites of B-mode, ventricular strain, pulsed-wave Doppler and tissue Doppler indices showing concordant changes indicative of myocardial hypocontractility or hypercontractility, respectively. Repeatability, intra-observer and inter-observer correlations for echocardiographic measurements were high. We demonstrate that high frequency echocardiography allows reliable in vivo cardiac assessment in adult zebrafish and make recommendations for optimizing data acquisition and analysis. This enabling technology reveals new insights into zebrafish cardiac physiology and provides an imaging platform for zebrafish-based translational research. Summary: Standardization of zebrafish echocardiography provides insights into cardiac physiology in normal and diseased states, with application for functional studies in zebrafish models of heart disease.


arley (Hordeum vulgare L.) production is constrained by diseases such as net blotch caused by Pyrenophora teres Drechsl. The objectives of this study were to assess the effects of net blotch disease on malt barley yield and grain quality under natural infection. Four malt barley varieties (Beka, HB 120, HB 52 and Holker), three fungicide (propiconazole) spray intervals (at 7, 14 and 21 day) and no spray control were arranged in a randomized complete block design in four replications. The experiment was conducted at Holeta Agricultural Research Center, Ethiopia in the summer of 2005, on a plot of 12 m2 for each treatment. Disease incidence and severity, yield and grain quality parameters were measured and analyzed. The results indicated a significant (P< 0.05) difference in disease incidence and percentage severity index at 107 days after planting and for the Area under the Disease Progress Curve among spray intervals and the varieties. Variation in yield and yield components were indicated among the varieties. Relative yield losses of 7.711.5% occurred in Beka and 15.321.2% in HB 120. The hectoliter weight (HLW) for both the varieties and the spray intervals ranged from 63.5 to 66.8 kg and were significantly different among the spray intervals and the varieties. The varieties had thousand-kernel weight (TKW) in the range of 32.5 to 46.4 g. Net blotch severity reduced yield and TKW in Beka and HB 120. However, in other grain quality factors analyzed, significant variations were observed only mong the varieties. On slotted sieve screens (mm): 2.8, 2.5, 2.8 + 2.5, 2.2 and < 2.2 the % grain mass retained ranged from 30.647.3, 40.650.6, 74.792.3, 6.618.8 and 1.05.7, respectively. The grain protein content (GPC) of the varieties ranged from 8.49.5%. The germination- capacity varied from 99.1 to 99.8% and germination energy from 98.5 to 99.4%. The study showed that the grain plumpness, GPC and germination characteristics of the varieties meet the malt and brewery industry requirements. However, HB 120 and HB 52 appeared superior to Beka and Holker.


Modern vehicles are equipped with numerous electric control units which exchange vehicular status data, providing drivers with convenience, efficiency, and safety. In addition, the autonomous vehicles adopt various sensors that produce high volumes of high-speed data to process and assess internal and external situations. This data is particularly useful to automotive service providers such as car insurers, rental companies, and manufacturers. One way to understand how this data is used is to imagine the scenario in which an automobile insurer would provide a discount to a customer with an accident-free or near accident-free driving record. However, it is still possible that a less than the honest customer could manipulate their driving data in order to receive premium insurance services at preferential rates. To prevent this and similar scenarios, it is then critical to ensure that all data generated in a vehicle upholds integrity, continuity, and non-repudiation. Unfortunately, no such trustworthy data recording system of this caliber exists in any manufactured vehicle to date. This paper attempts to respond to this need, and we present a reliable automotive data recording system that satisfies these requirements and detects malicious manipulations from data deletion, replacement, replaying, and truncation. The proposed method additionally satisfies forward integrity of message authentication keys and is designed to utilize recorded data as automotive forensic evidence. Finally, the evaluation results demonstrate that our system can manage bandwidths of up to 64 MB/s.


Intensive photometric and spectral observations of the variable star V2551 Cyg are presented. The light curve shape reveals that the target is a pulsating star, contrary to its previous classification as an eclipsing binary. The period and amplitude of the light curve, the amplitudes of color changes and the radial velocity curve of V2551 Cyg are similar to those of a high-amplitude δ Scuti variable. The target seems to pulsate with the fundamental mode. However, V2551 Cyg exhibits several important peculiarities: (i) the decreasing branch of its light curve is steeper than the increasing one; (ii) the radial velocity curve has a flat section in the phase range 0.7–1.2 and short increase of the negative radial velocity at phase 0.7; (iii) the rotational velocity is quite big for a HADS star; (iv) the Fourier coefficients of V2551 Cyg are quite different from those of HADS stars. The target classification is difficult due to these peculiarities.


Mobile phones are a popular platform for gaming in addition to being the most ubiquitous one. Monetization of free to play games with embedded and interstitial advertisements is one of the main sources of income for mobile game creators. We used a constructive approach in this study. A mobile game developed during the study, Between Beats, was used to survey the influence of interstitial advertisement on selected aspects of player experience. The study was conducted by deploying the game to Google Play and guiding the players, after gameplay, to an online survey. The survey was answered by 51 participants who were divided randomly into four groups based on how much they were subjected to interstitial or rewarded advertisements while playing. Our results show that embedding rewarded advertisements to a situation where there already is interstitial advertisements, resulted in reduction of perceived advertisement intrusiveness and increase in advertisements viewed. Player engagement remained constant in all groups. Our findings complement earlier findings on the use of rewarded advertisements in mobile games.


North Carolina Future City Program: Increasing a Statewide Program Mission, Presence, and Participation to Ensure Institutional Legacy, Thompson, Lisa M., 2019, Consultancy Project, Gardner-Webb University, Digital Commons/Ensuring Institutional Legacy/Building statements of Mission and Vision in an Organization/Creating a Communications Plan/Leveraging Social Media/Social Medial Policy Creation The future was both the theme and purpose of this Consultancy Project (CP). Future City is an educational program supported by a national engineering organization. This program, with emphasis on engineering principles and activities, provides materials, processes, and structures that support a robust, project-based learning approach. Annually, students in sixth through eighth grade participate regionally, by creating cities of the future based on their solution to a challenge topic that changes yearly. The cycle culminates in a regional competition; regional winners compete in the national event in February. A group of engineers created a North Carolina chapter of the national Future City program in 2001–Future City North Carolina Region (FCNC). In 2013, FCNC became a partner of the North Carolina State University College of Engineering and is now an outreach program of The Engineering Place. The FCNC Steering Committee is made up largely of volunteers; volunteers run almost all aspects of the program. Members of FCNC are committed to the educational value of the program and want to ensure its future. How does FCNC grow in order to provide more students and teachers the opportunity to participate? How does the organization remain a relevant entity so as to promote this impactful learning enhancement? This CP provided a plan to answer those questions and included the following aspects: building a "band of participation" of counties across the state so as to spread awareness and program interaction, focusing on the purpose of the organization by creating mission/vision/values/belief (M/V/V/B) statements with aligned roles and responsibilities, and creating a comprehensive outwardfacing communications plan leveraging social media platforms. Results that occurred from November, 2017 through May, 2019 were participation in the Regional Competition Cycle 18/19 increased 108% over the previous year in total number of counties participating; M/V/V/B statements were created and, as a result, a new organizational structure was created; last, a comprehensive communications plan and social media policy were created and implemented. A sustainment statement including analysis, data sets, and recommendations was submitted to the steering committee. It provided action steps and suggestions to continue building a presence and ensuring program legacy across the state of North Carolina. Table of


Following Quiguin (1994), we propose a general model of preferences that accounts for individuals' regret concerns. By confronting the commonlyaccepted additive and multiplicative regret utility functions to this model, we establish certain characteristics that these utility functions require to be in conformity with our preferences model. Equally, as regret is intrinsically related to the concept of information about the foregone alternatives, we generalize our framework so that it can accomodate any information structure. We show that the less informative that structure is, the higher the utility of a regretful individual. This result means that an individual prefers not to be exposed to ex post information about the foregone alternatives. We also focus on information value, and consider two cases. That of flexibility, where information arrives before the choice and can be used to determine the optimal strategy; that of non-flexibility, where information arrives after the choice. We show that information value is negative when there is no flexibility, and that it can also be negative when there is flexibility. JEL classification: D03, D81, D82. Keywords: regret, information, choice under uncertainty, bivariate risk aversion.


Over the past century, Manitoba has promoted the construction of hydroelectric dams as a means of producing energy. These projects are produced on Indigenous territory and bring these communities into direct conflict with the province and Manitoba Hydro. Recently, Manitoba Hydro has promoted partnerships with affected First Nations. These partnerships provide communities the "opportunity" to purchase shares of the dams with the goal of gaining profits. Partnerships have been established for two projects as a means of suggesting social licence. Social licence is an informal licence provided by a community to show support and consent for a project in their area. A progressive definition of social licence is when communities provide "free, prior, and informed consent." Partnership agreements in northern Manitoba do not provide social licence, as the communities involvement in the project, and the means by which the partnership is established do not provide "free, prior, and informed consent."


There is a wide disparity in academic performance between Indo-Fijian and Native-Fijian first-year science students at the University of the South Pacific. Native-Fijian students seemed to be not performing well in science courses at the above named universityt as compared to their Indo-Fijian students counterparts, The present research investigated some of the factors contributing to academic underachievement of native-Fijian students as compared to Indo-Fijian students.
The research was a qualitative and quantitative study that used interviews and questionnaire as the main research tool for data collection. Interviews were conducted with 20 native-Fijian science students and 6 science lecturers together with some data collected using questionnaires from 80 first-year University of the South Pacific science students.
The findings showed that native-Fijian students did not perform well at the above named university because there seemed to be a mis-match between their cultural norm and those required by the University to be successful. The "blame" is with the individual or their culture. Their cultural upbringing tend to hinder their academic performance. In addition, their low socioeconomic status also had some effect on their performance.
The problem is much deeper than these socio-cultural factors because native-Fijian students' performance is also reflected by the characteristics of their schools. In particular, majority of native-Fijian schools tend to place more emphasis in sports rather than on academics. The unavailability of resources in most native-Fijian secondary schools affected the quality of teaching which in effect affected the quality of students coming to the University of the South Pacific during their first year studies. Native-Fijian schools were also faced with the problem of inexperienced form 7 teachers teaching Form 7 when the government during that time suddenly phased out the Foundation Programme at the University of the South Pacific.
Other external factors found to affect native-Fijian students' performance at the University included: the sponsoring of native-Fijian students with low entry marks, the students' inadaptability to the University environment, the absence of native-Fijian students role models and supporting environment, the influence of peer groups, the attitude of lecturers towards students and the lack of parental involvement in terms of educational pressure and assistance.
The implications of the findings suggest the need for more research to be carried out on native-Fijian primary and secondary education because it seemed that the problem at the University of the South Pacific originate at these two levels. In particular, more emphasis is needed to research the teaching and learning styles in native-Fijian culture that would enhance science teaching and learning for the native-Fijian students to try to "help" them come up to the "norm". There is also a need to channel learning and teaching resources and best staff to native-Fijian secondary schools because native-Fijian education will be the loser if native-Fijian education funds allocated by the government are not directed towards relevant identifiable areas. The government should also look carefully at the present policy on scholarship quota because the system only allow a tradition of failure amongst first-year native-Fijian students at the University since it only allowed the Fijian Affairs Board to select students with low entry marks. Finally, native-Fijian parents should set high expectations for their children to communicate the idea of the importance of education in the family and to the survival of the future native-Fijian race. This will provide their children with a sense of mission, direction and challenge.


If the implementation of current regulations for environmental protection were to be entirely successful, and if urban wastewater were to be treated entirely at source, what would be the nature of water pollution control in the long run? Would an alternative style of regulation be needed and thus a different strategy of monitoring the environment? How might we acquire the knowledge base required to guide and inform the associated decision-making process? These are the sorts of questions that provide the motivation for this paper. In particular, it addresses problems of the reliability of contaminant removal and recovery from wastewater, the handling of contingencies, and the attenuation of transient pollution events associated with land-surface runoff.


Rivers in watersheds dominated by agriculture throughout the US are impaired by excess sediment, a significant portion of which comes from non‐field, near‐channel sources. Both land‐use and climate have been implicated in altering river flows and thereby increasing stream‐channel erosion and sediment loading. In the wetland‐rich landscapes of the upper Mississippi basin, 20th century crop conversions have led to an intensification of artificial drainage, which is now a critical component of modern agriculture. At the same time, much of the region has experienced increased annual rainfall. Uncertainty in separating these drivers of streamflow fuels debate between agricultural and environmental interests on responsibility and solutions for excess riverine sediment. To disentangle the effects of climate and land‐use, we compared changes in precipitation, crop conversions, and extent of drained depressional area in 21 Minnesota watersheds over the past 70 years. Watersheds with large land‐use changes had increases in seasonal and annual water yields of >50% since 1940. On average, changes in precipitation and crop evapotranspiration explained less than one‐half of the increase, with the remainder highly correlated with artificial drainage and loss of depressional areas. Rivers with increased flow have experienced channel widening of 10–40% highlighting a source of sediment seldom addressed by agricultural best management practices. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


A 2D analytical calculation method for permanent magnet bearings is proposed and used with a novel computer-aided constrained-design methodology. This methodology uses symbolic computation and automatic programming to generate the optimization software, based on an analytical model of the device. The methodology, implemented in experimental software, Pascosma, is applied to miniaturize passive bearings using bonded and thin-film magnets.


Near Infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a brain imaging technique that measures hemodynamic activity in the human brain cortex with special wavelengths (infrared) in the light. The use of this technique in brain-computer interface (BCI) systems is increasing in terms of noninvasive and is not affected by electrical noise. With this increasing use, works become more important for high-accuracy NIRS based BCI systems. For a high-performance BCI system, the preprocessing, feature extraction and classification methods applied to BCI signals are important. For this purpose, in this study, we were studied 2-class (hand opening-closing) motor imaginary NIRS data set recorded 29 subjects. Firstly, change in oxygenated hemoglobin (HbO) and deoxygenated hemoglobin (HbR) concentrations were determined by applying the modified Beer-Lambert law to the data set. Then, features were extracted by Katz fractal dimension from pre-processed HbR and HbO. The extracted features were classified by ¿-nearest neighbors and then we calculated 74.10% and 71.10% mean classification accuracy (CA) for HbR and HbO, respectively. These values are 5.86% and %6.64 higher than the average 66.50% and 63.50% CAs calculated in the literature for HbR and HbO. These results indicate that proposed method is effective for this data set.


ABSTRACT: The repetitive use of glyphosate in the control of weeds in eucalyptus plantations has selected tolerant species such as Commelina benghalensis. Therefore, the use of herbicides of other mechanisms of action, such as saflufenacil, in rotation or combination with glyphosate, is necessary to reduce damages caused by C. benghalensis, whose sensitivity to herbicides can be influenced by the shading caused by the eucalyptus crop. This study aimed to assess the efficiency of saflufenacil in the management of C. benghalensis at different shading levels. Three experiments were carried out regarding a certain shading level (cultivation environment with 0, 40, and 55% shade). The experimental design was a randomized block design with five herbicide doses (0, 24.5, 49, 73.5, and 98 g ha-1 of saflufenacil) and four replications. At 28 days after herbicide application, the percentage of control and shoot dry matter were assessed, as well as the biomass allocation to leaves, stems, and roots of C. benghalensis. Plants cultivated at 0% shade presented a higher dry matter accumulation and a better distribution of biomass in leaves, stem, and roots, contributing with the increased tolerance to saflufenacil and not being controlled with effectiveness under the assessed doses. As shading was increased, plants of C. benghalensis allocated most of their biomass to the shoot, especially leaves, reducing their reserve structures and increasing the contact area with the herbicide, making them more susceptible to saflufenacil.


Schedules of reinforcement explain when a reinforcer may be delivered. Among the different schedules exists continuous (CRF), intermittent (INT), and extinction (EXT). When employing a CRF, reinforcement is delivered following every occurrence of the target response. An INT schedule includes varying the delivery of reinforcement. While both of these schedules include the delivery of reinforcement, EXT means that reinforcement is no longer delivered for the target response (Lee & Belfiore, 1997). Studies have shown that behaviors may be less resistant to extinction if moved from an INT schedule to a CRF schedule than if EXT followed the INT schedule alone. This effect on behavior has been termed the interpolation of reinforcement effect (IRE; Higbee et al., 2002). The current study seeks to compare the effects of prior exposure to a CRF and INT schedule of reinforcement on responding during subsequent extinction with Sniffy, a simulated virtual laboratory rat.


Title Ultimate Shear Behavior and Modeling of Reinforced Concrete Members Jacketed by Fiber Reinforced Polymer and Steel [an abstract of dissertation and a summary of dissertation review] Author(s) Jirawattanasomkul, Tidarut Citation 北海道大学. 博士(工学) 甲第11131号 Issue Date 2013-09-25 Doc URL http://hdl.handle.net/2115/53881 Rights(URL) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.1/jp/ Type theses (doctoral abstract and summary of review) Additional Information There are other files related to this item in HUSCAP. Check the above URL. File Information Tidarut_Jirawattanasomkul_abstract.pdf (論文内容の要旨)


Reducing the bit rate of waveform interpolation speech coders while maintaining the perceptual quality has been the focus of a great deal of research. This letter proposes a new method of slowly evolving waveform (SEW) quantization specifically targeted at low rate coding. The proposed method uses a pulse model whose parameters are implicitly contained in the quantized rapidly evolving waveform (REW) parameters, thus requiring no bits for transmission. Results indicate no degradation in perceptual speech quality when compared to that of the existing SEW quantization method. This retention of perceptual quality is in spite of a 12% reduction in the overall coder bit rate.


Egg-grown Sendai virus was used for preparation of rabbit hyperimmune sera directed against purified whole virus and pronasetreated projectionless virus particles. These sera and convalescent sera after natural Sendai infection in guinea pigs were studied in haemolysis-inhibition (HLI), haemagglutination-inhibition (HI) and neuraminidase-inhibition (NI) tests both before and after absorption with Tween 80-ether (TE) treated virus preparations. In addition, neutralization tests using the different sera were carried out. HI and NI antibodies and the major population of neutralizing antibodies in convalescent sera were removed by absorption with TE treated virus material without changing the titre of non-HI HLI antibodies. Rabbit hyperimmune sera directed against projectionless virus particles exhibited HLI antibody titres in marked excess of HI and NI antibody titres, whereas this was not found in sera against purified whole virus. In contrast, absorption of sera against projectionless particles eliminated HI antibodies without changing the titre of non-HI HLI antibodies. The protein composition of antigenic preparations used in absorption experiments and for preparation of sera was investigated by SDS-polyacryladmie-gel electrophoresis. TH treatment had no significant effect on the polypeptide pattern of Sendai virus. Pronase-treatment predominantly affected the two glycosylated proteins of Sendai virus. The larger glycoprotein was not detectable in pronasetreated projectionless virus particles, whereas the smaller glycoprotein was present in reduced quantities.


Problem Statement: Image base methods are a new approach for solving problems of navigations for visually impaired people. Approach: The study introduced a new approach of an electronic cane for blind people using the environment represented as a weighted topological graph instead, each node contains images taken at some poses in the work space, instead of building a metric (3D) model of the environment. Results: By computing weights between already stored images and the real scene of the environment and take some considerations like sessions. The system gives advices for the blind person to select the right direction in indoor navigate depending on weights and session, where a mono camera cane-held gives information in front of the visually impaired person. Conclusion: A cane that has the ability of getting SIFT feature for an object or site from a sequence of live images using the suggested approach is very satisfactory, The session and weight, speed up the system and gives a wide range indoor navigation and may be used to outdoor. Experimental results demonstrated a good performance of proposed method, the identification of different scenes to the blind person done by constructing the weighted visual environment graph to the system. The proposed scheme is using SIFT features to represent the objects and the sites.


"This paper studies the diffusion of greenhouse agriculture in a watershed in the northern uplands of Thailand by applying econometrics and agent-based modeling in combination. Adoption has been rapid by farmers in the central valley of the watershed, while farmers at higher altitudes, lacking transferable land titles that could serve as mortgage collateral, have been unable to obtain loans for greenhouse investment. The objectives of the paper are both methodological and empirical. On the methodological side, it shows that econometrically estimated models of farm household behavior are useful to design and to parameterize an agent-based model. On the empirical side, simulation results show that if mortgage collateral would not be required, then adoption in the upper part of the watershed could reach nearly 77% of farm households by 2020, as compared to about 36% under current conditions. Furthermore results suggest a significant increase in incomes related to the innovation and a substantially greater irrigation water use, especially in the central part. As bell pepper under greenhouses has replaced pesticide-intensive chrysanthemum, it has declined average levels of pesticide use. Nevertheless, pesticide use is high and farmers are struggling to control pests, which raises questions about the long-term sustainability of the innovation." Copyright (c) 2009 Canadian Agricultural Economics Society.


Non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) serve as the causative agent for fish tuberculosis which is a chronic progressive disease covering a vast range of cultured and wild, freshwater and marine environments in different climatic conditions. Detection of environmental Mycobacteria in a conventional way is generally dependent on the basis of phenotypic, histopathological and biochemical characterization. The present study focused on the distribution and occurrence of mycobacterial pathogens in clinically infected fishes of a variety of species, water and soils from different aquaculture sources in West Bengal, India. Samples were collected from four distinct regions where fishes were examined for granulomatous inflammation. A total of 161 fishes, 127 water and 97 soil samples were examined and 132 (81.98 %), 65 (51.18 %) and 36 (37.11 %) appeared as acid-fast positive respectively. Presences of acid-fast bacteria within necrotic tissue of infected fishes were detected by Zn staining. Morphology, biochemical characteristics and 16S rRNA gene sequencing of bacteria were satisfactory to show the acid-fast bacilli belong to the Genus Mycobacteria. Polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) analysis was carried out to analyze the rpoB gene sequencing to confirm Mycobacteria down to the species level. Ten different NTM species were identified using PCR-RFLP analysis. Mycobacterium fortuitum type I was the most abundantly isolated species among all the sample sources. The present study suggests that water play a major role in the epidemiology of environmental Mycobacteria, infecting aquatic organisms and conducting potential public health hazard, especially those who are immune-compromised individual.


The Internet of Things is a concept that is fast gaining recognition in the world today. It allows the various entities to be connected to each other through a network preferably the internet. Such is the popularity of the technology that by 2020, close to 100 billion devices will be connected to the internet. One of the most prominent and perhaps the main driver for the internet of thing is sensor data computing. Sensor data computing is a cloud-based utility that is provisioned as SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS. The main issues related to sensor data computation and internet of things should not be ignored such as problem with data storage and transfer, connecting remote assets, security issues etc. This paper addresses the main concerns that relate to the internet of things and sensor data computing. Focus is placed on how the two entities work together to deliver seamless services. Challenges and applicability of the two techniques are also discussed.


As scientists continue to discover convincing evidence that the earth's climate is adversely changing, and that these changes could impact the habitat suitability of some wildlife species; wildlife conservationists are increasingly worried of what may become the fate of most species on earth. In the light of such uncertainty, geographic information systems (GIS) can be used as a tool to model for the habitat suitability of a species. Such modeling provides reliable information upon which decision making could be based for planning conservation management aimed at protecting areas that are currently suitable as well as those that may become suitable in future if the global climate changes according to the scenarios as described; and the changes impact the species' habitat suitability. GIS in combination to Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) distribution model were used to model the habitat suitability for Pan troglodytes ellioti on Mount Fako (Cameroon) as a case study area. The results show that the predicted habitat suitability may shift from lower altitudes to higher altitudes as the global climate may change from the current climatic conditions to warmer climatic conditions in the future as proposed in the climate scenario that assumes the concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases may double by 2050. The accuracy assessment measured in terms of the Area Under the Curve (AUC) was 0.699.


The recent decade has seen the emergence of the 'Yale model' of portfolio management. Most of it rests on one fact: by having an aggressive allocation to private equity, Yale grew its endowment significantly. A key figure cited as supporting evidence is that the private equity return of Yale since the inception of their PE program is a staggering 30.4%. This paper points out that this figure is a since-inception-IRR. Even though since-inception-IRRs are recommended by the GIPS standards, they can be dramatically misleading. Presenting Yale as an investment model on such a basis is therefore probably premature. To illustrate, I show that an investor with a rather 'average' track record in venture capital could display a 30% return over a long horizon and that this number would hardly change in any year from 2000 to 2010, irrespective of the increase in capital allocation, which is similar to what is seen from the annual reports of Yale Endowment.


Objective To examine the effect of a multifaceted educational intervention on the incidence of medication preparation and administration errors in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Design Prospective study with a preintervention and postintervention measurement using direct observation. Setting NICU in a tertiary hospital in the Netherlands. Intervention A multifaceted educational intervention including teaching and self-study. Main outcome measures The incidence of medication preparation and administration errors. Clinical importance was assessed by three experts. Results The incidence of errors decreased from 49% (43–54%) (151 medications with one or more errors of 311 observations) to 31% (87 of 284) (25–36%). Preintervention, 0.3% (0–2%) medications contained severe errors, 26% (21–31%) moderate and 23% (18–28%) minor errors; postintervention, none 0% (0–2%) was severe, 23% (18–28%) moderate and 8% (5–12%) minor. A generalised estimating equations analysis provided an OR of 0.49 (0.29–0.84) for period (p=0.032), (route of administration (p=0.001), observer within period (p=0.036)). Conclusions The multifaceted educational intervention seemed to have contributed to a significant reduction of the preparation and administration error rate, but other measures are needed to improve medication safety further.


We give a novel formal theoretical framework for unsupervised learning with two distinctive characteristics. First, it does not assume any generative model and based on a worst-case performance metric. Second, it is comparative, namely performance is measured with respect to a given hypothesis class. This allows to avoid known computational hardness results and improper algorithms based on convex relaxations. We show how several families of unsupervised learning models, which were previously only analyzed under probabilistic assumptions and are otherwise provably intractable, can be efficiently learned in our framework by convex optimization.


The course of surgical treatment of 124 patients aged over 70 years was subjected to an assessment. On the basis of the ASA classification, 88% of all surgically treated patients fell into group III-IV of risk. Surgical operations were performed under intratracheal general anaesthesia (85%) or conduction anaesthesia (15%). The induction of general anaesthesia was accompanied by adverse reactions of the cardiovascular system in the form of arterial blood pressure drops and heart rhythm disturbances. Heart rhythm disturbances were not observed in patients under conduction anaesthesia. No intraoperative deaths were noted.


Small-scale fisheries are economically and culturally important throughout the world's coastal waters. These fisheries, however, often have high bycatch rates of protected marine species. Bycatch in small scale gillnet fisheries is thought to be a major driver behind the declines of several sea turtle populations. Recent studies addressing this issue have identified net illumination as a potentially effective bycatch reduction technology (BRT) to reduce sea turtle interactions with gillnet fisheries. In Southeast Asia, small-scale gillnet fisheries make up a large components of fishing effort often in areas that overlap with important sea turtle habitat. We conducted controlled experiments of net illumination as a potential BRT to reduce sea turtle bycatch in a coastal gillnet fishery based in Paloh, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Results indicated that net illumination significantly reduced multi-species sea turtle bycatch by 61.4% and specifically green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) by 59.5%, while the CPUE of total catch and target species remained similar. Moreover, this study suggests that Indonesian fishers can increase their overall market value when using net illumination as the market value per unit effort (MVPUE) of both the total catch and target catch showed significant increases. These results suggest that net illumination could be an effective sea turtle conservation tool for small-scale coastal gillnet fisheries in Indonesia and potentially throughout Southeast Asia. In addition, data from the control treatments of this study also provided the first observer based sea turtle bycatch estimate for a small-scale gillnet fishery in Southeast Asia. Challenges to the broad scale implementation of net illumination to reduce this bycatch of sea turtles include the cost, availability of the technology, socialization of the BRT to fishers, and government interest and support for net illumination as a tool for bycatch reduction.


Epidemiological surveillance systems are an integral part of programmes geared towards disease control and therapy especially programmes for infectious diseases. In particular, the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data on the spread of sexually transmitted diseases provide the foundation for prevention and control programmes. During the last decade, the lack of data about the diffusion of the emerging STD, such as genital herpes, genital warts and non gonococcal genital infections, has conducted in Italy to set up a STD Surveillance System based on the reporting of cases from selected clinical sites. This report reviews the general principles and methods to be used in setting up of Italian STD Surveillance Project.


BACKGROUND:
 Hypertension is the premier modifiable risk factor for stroke. After a stroke, poorly controlled blood pressure (BP) is associated with a higher risk of recurrent vascular events; however, less than half of stroke survivors in the US have BP in the normal range. Uninsured and under-insured adults generally have less access to recommended care and receive poorer quality of care, but it is unclear to what extent insurance status affects BP control after stroke.

 METHODS:
 We assessed BP control among adults (≥20 years) with a history of stroke who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys from 1999 through 2010. The relationship between insurance type and BP control (ideal: <120/80 mm Hg and good: <140/90 mm Hg) was evaluated using logistic regression before and after adjusting for age, sex, race, body mass index, household income, history of hypertension and major comorbidities, and NHANES cycle.

 RESULTS:
 Of an estimated 2,253,394 stroke survivors <65 years, 47% had private insurance, 19% were uninsured, 10% had Medicaid, 10% had Medicare, 8% had other government insurance, and 4% had Medicare and Medicaid. Among an estimated 2,927,596 stroke survivors aged ≥65 years, 38% had Medicare, 44% had Medicare and Medicaid, 8% had private insurance, and the remainder had Medicaid, other government insurance, or were uninsured. Overall, 28% of stroke survivors exhibited ideal BP control and 61% of stroke survivors had good BP control. Insurance type was not associated with ideal BP control. However, among stroke survivors <65 years, those with Medicaid were more likely than those who were uninsured to have good BP control (HR 2.41, 95% CI 0.87-6.68; p=0.09). Among stroke survivors ≥65 years, those with a combination of Medicare and private insurance had greater odds of good BP control compared to persons with Medicare insurance alone (HR 1.39, 95% CI 0.97-2.00, p=0.07).

 CONCLUSIONS:
 Depending on age and insurance type, uninsured or underinsured stroke survivors in the US tend to have lower odds of good BP control. Recent legislation to expand insurance coverage may help bridge these disparities, but intensified efforts aimed at enhancing clinician communication and promoting self-management among these patients may also be warranted.


Raman spectroscopy was used to analyze cellulose nanocrystal (CNC)–polypropylene (PP) composites and to investigate the spatial distribution of CNCs in extruded composite filaments. Three composites were made from two forms of nanocellulose (CNCs from wood pulp and the nano-scale fraction of microcrystalline cellulose) and two of the three composites investigated used maleated PP as a coupling agent. Raman maps, based on cellulose and PP bands at 1098 and 1460 cm−1, respectively, obtained at 1 μm spatial resolution showed that the CNCs were aggregated to various degrees in the PP matrix. Of the three composites analyzed, two showed clear existence of phase-separated regions: Raman images with strong PP and absent/weak cellulose or vice versa. For the third composite, the situation was slightly improved but a clear transition interface between the PP-abundant and CNC-abundant regions was observed, indicating that the CNC remained poorly dispersed. The spectroscopic approach to investigating spatial distribution of the composite components was helpful in evaluating CNC dispersion in the composite at the microscopic level, which helped explain the relatively modest reinforcement of PP by the CNCs.