Abstract  There is limited knowledge regarding the biology of beetles in Cossoninae and Scolytinae (Curculionidae) in South Africa. It has recently been found that beetles in these two weevil subfamilies are associated with Euphorbia ingens E. Meyer: Boissier die-offs in the country. Lindgren traps baited with 95% ethanol were set at three sites in two provinces of South Africa to gain an understanding of the seasonal activity of the beetles that infest E. ingens. Temperature and relative humidity were monitored at each site to correlate environmental conditions with beetle flight patterns. Seven beetle species, of which six were in Scolytinae and one in Cossoninae, were captured in the traps over a period of 20 mo. Eccoptopterus spinosus Olivier, Premnobius cavipennis Eichhoff and Xyleborinus spinifer Eggers were the most commonly caught beetles. Ambrosiodmus natalensis Schedl, E. spinosus, P. cavipennis, and X. spinifer are reported from South Africa for the first time. Of the seven beetle species, two, Cyrtogenius africus Wood and a Stenoscelis sp. Wollaston, are known to colonize diseased and dying E. ingens trees, but these were trapped in low numbers, possibly due to the choice of bait used. The number of C. africus and Stenoscelis sp. caught varied with temperature and humidity, but only temperature had a significant effect on numbers captured. The number of C. africus and Stenoscelis sp. caught appeared to be a function of site and climatic conditions as opposed to E. ingens mortality levels.


Background: Patients who experience massive weight loss often require a thighplasty procedure to reduce excess skin and reshape thighs and lower body contour, improving movement, hygiene, posture, self-image, and quality of life. Methods: After weight loss and stabilization of weight, eight patients in the postoperative period of gastric bypass were subjected to a thighplasty. Measurements of upper and lower circumferences of the thighplasty and thigh heights were obtained in the preoperative and postoperative periods of 60 and 180 days for comparison of volume change after the surgical procedure. Results: The average volume reduction of each thigh at a postoperative period of 180 days was 1,135 cm3 or 1.135 liters. All patients had small areas of dehiscence along the scars on the medial thigh, and dressings were applied for healing by secondary intention. One (12.5%) patient had cysts in both thighs, confirmed by ultrasound, and required surgical intervention for resection and subsequent resolution. Conclusions: It was possible to demonstrate significant reduction in the volume of each thigh after plastic surgery for contour refitting. Patient satisfaction and complications associated with the procedures performed were also documented.


Neuronal identity is controlled in multiple developmental steps by key transcription factors that determine the unique properties of a cell. During embryogenesis, the transcription factor Prox1 has been shown to regulate VIP interneuron migration, survival, and as a result, circuit integration. Here, we explore the role of Prox1 as a regulator of genetic programs that guide the final specification of VIP interneuron subtypes in early post-natal life. Using in-vitro electrophysiology we find that post-natal removal of Prox1 differentially affects the synaptic integration of VIP bipolar and multipolar subtypes. RNA sequencing reveals that one of the downstream targets of Prox1 is the postsynaptic protein Elfn1, a constitutive regulator of presynaptic release probability. Genetic, pharmacological and electrophysiological experiments demonstrate that knocking out Prox1 reduces Elfn1 function in VIP multipolar but not in bipolar cells. Thus, in addition to the activity-dependent and contextual processes that finalize developmental trajectories, genetic programs engaged by Prox1 control the differentiation and connectivity of VIP interneuron subtypes.


Neuropathic pain is a chronic pain condition caused by lesion or disease affecting the somatosensory system. The glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) family ligands (GFLs) alleviate symptoms of NP and stimulate regeneration of sensory neurons in vivo. Here we report the development of the compound BT18 that selectively activates GFLreceptors, alleviates pain and restores damaged dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons in rat models of NP. Significance statement Neuropathic pain (NP) is a chronic syndrome caused by different diseases and lesions affecting nervous system. Earlier studies demonstrated that neurotrophic factors - the glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) and artemin - could reverse the damage done by lesions in animal models of NP. We demonstrate for the first time that a small molecule can activate receptor of GDNF and artemin, it alleviates pain symptoms in vivo in two animal models of NP and restores to normal the molecular markers expressed in sensory neurons. This compound, termed BT18, can pave way for creating novel disease modifying therapies for NP.


In an extension of previous methods for maximum-likelihood (ML) Toeplitz covariance estimation, new iterative algorithms for computing joint ML estimates of complex sinusoids in unknown stationary Gaussian noise are proposed. The number of sinusoids is assumed known, but their frequencies and amplitudes are not. The iterative algorithm, an adaptation of the expectation-maximization (EM) technique, proceeds from an initial estimate of the mean and Toeplitz covariance, and iterates between estimating the mean given the current covariance and vice versa, with likelihood increasing at each step. The resulting ML covariance estimates are compared to conventional estimators and Cramer-Rao bounds. An analysis of the Kay and Marple (1981) data set is also presented. The effectiveness of the new algorithm for estimating means in unknown noise is investigated, and the usefulness of simultaneously estimating the covariance and the mean is demonstrated. >


The information age has created many challenges for every profession. In the case of journalism the introduction of information technology has altered considerably various aspects of the profession. The high tech revolution has significantly altered the way the public obtains its news and information, and has deprived the mass media of its traditional monopoly. This paper will explore intersections between new media, journalism and technology in order to enhance our understanding of the influence of information and communication technology, specially internet technology on traditional journalism. The media and the practice of journalism, however, have been slow to adjust to the Internet and the global ramifications produced by the new information technology. In the past decades, journalists in the Western World have benefited from the tremendous growth in information communication technologies – ICTs – and in the last ten years the ICTs have also penetrated the developing world and have made available computers, Internet access, and mobile technology. This development has probably eased journalistic working procedures in these parts of the world. Though journalists throughout the world still separate "domestic" from "foreign," while their audiences casually chat between continents. Today various computerized sources are regularly being used in media organizations. This paper investigates the adoption of information technology, three broad themes reflecting the role of the media in the digital age emerged from the Journalism, how journalists use these new tools to advance their profession, write for global audience and news gathering, the role of Internet; what the security and ethical implications are in this new realm; and whether freedom of the press necessarily means freedom of access, confusion created by new digital technologies and the power, speed and usefulness of digital creation, transmission and reception. This paper also considers that while the new digital platforms and technologies do present significant challenges to traditional journalism, they are also enabling technologies that offer opportunities to reinvigorate newsgathering. Although the future of journalism is a digital one, the core competencies of a good journalist will be as important as ever.


Distribution and abundance of tonguefish larvae ( Symphurus williamsi ) were analyzed from collections made during ten oceanographic surveys in the Gulf of California between 1984 and 1988. Larvae were found mainly during the summer months and the highest abundances were located in the warmer southern and central regions of the Gulf, but they were scarce in the northern portion. High abundance of preflexion larvae occurred in areas where the sea surface temperature was between 29 and 32°C. Distribution patterns according to developmental stage suggest spatial ontogenic segregation with the early larvae in the ocean area of the central and southern regions of the Gulf. Based on abundance of preflexion larvae as well as on signs of a short egg period of this species, spawns may occur between early and mid summer.


Bacterial denitrification is a part of the global nitrogen cycle and comprises the stepwise reduction of nitrate to molecular nitrogen, which is released to the atmosphere. Cytochrome c-dependent nitric oxide reductase (cNOR) from Paracoccus (P.) denitrificans catalyzes the reduction of nitric oxide to nitrous oxide and water. This is a key step of the denitrification chain as it involves reformation of the N-N bond that was split in nitrogen fixation processes. In addition, nitric oxide is cytotoxic and nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas. cNOR is an integral, two-subunit membrane protein, which contains several redox-active metal cofactors essential for function. In P. denitrificans the enzyme is expressed from an operon norCBQDEF, of which only norCB are the structural genes for the cNOR protein. The assembly process of cNOR, including cofactor insertion, as well as the detailed catalytic function of the enzyme are largely unknown, which motivated this study. Our results showed that cNOR can be expressed from only the norCB genes and that norQDEF are not essential for folding, complex formation and heme cofactor assembly of the protein. However, we found that non-heme iron (FeB) cofactor insertion into cNOR was dependent on the NorQ and NorD proteins, which were expressed from the nor operon. These proteins were purified as a complex and our results indicate that they act as a molecular chaperone. We present the cryo-electron microscopy structure of NorQ, which formed hexameric ring-shaped oligomers and was shown to have ATPase activity. Our data further suggest that NorD functions as an adaptor protein in order to link NorQ to a specific binding site at the cytoplasmic surface of cNOR. Based on our experimental data we present a model for FeB cofactor insertion into cNOR. Without co-expression of the NorQ and NorD proteins, the produced cNOR was inactive. It lacked FeB at the catalytic center but was otherwise structurally intact. Therefore we used this protein to investigate the role of FeB in the mechanism of nitric oxide and oxygen reduction of cNOR and compared our results to computational studies of the enzyme published recently. In vitro studies of membrane proteins, such as cNOR, are challenging because their function often depends on the interaction with a biological membrane and specific phospholipids. We used two different membrane mimetic systems, lipid nanodiscs and proteoliposomes, to study the effect of a membrane environment on the function of detergent-solubilized cNOR. Our results indicate that the membrane bilayer of lipid nanodiscs and proteoliposomes, even when assembled using the same lipids, has different properties with measurable effects on cNOR function.


This book concerns itself with the implementation of human rights strategies within the state police forces of Rio de Janeiro as an attempt to improve policing and enhance police compliance with human rights standards. For the sake of this research, police human rights strategies have been defined as those laws, policies, projects, or programs that implicitly or explicitly aim to improve police compliance with human rights values, standards, and norms. Explicit human rights strategies are those in which human rights are the core concerns of the strategy and the primary intention of the strategy creators and stakeholders whereas implicit strategies are those in which human rights are not stated as a core concern and may not be the intention of the strategy creator but whose design and contents include human rights elements. Both explicit and implicit police human rights strategies can have intended and unintended outcomes that have positive or negative implications for human rights. Police and public security reform has taken different forms based on where it is being implemented. For example, in Latin America, police reform was predominantly implemented in the 1980s and 1990s following the transition to democracy and the end of years of civil war in some countries. In Southern Cone countries there was no significant purging of the police forces following the decline of the repressive, military dictatorships and the return to democracy. Those police officers who had committed gross violations of human rights during the military dictatorships were allowed to continue performing their duties, and police reform, if it was implemented, had more to do with countering rising crime rates than the promotion of human rights. In fact, the police forces in Brazil, particularly in Rio de Janeiro, did not undergo reform following the transition to democracy. In many Latin American countries faced with significant increases in rates of crime and violence in their cities, respect for human rights repeatedly bowed to pressures to decrease crime and increase safety. The purpose of this research was to uncover what, if any, police human rights strategies are currently being implemented in Rio de Janeiro, what these strategies entail and how they are implemented, what the outcomes of these strategies are, how they are perceived by the key stakeholders involved in them, whether they lead to greater compliance with human rights standards, and what can be learnt from Rio's experience with implementing these strategies that may be relevant to other Latin American cities. Four strategies were selected to be the focus of this research, these strategies are: training law enforcement officials, community-oriented policing, the delegacia legal (model police station) program, and the disarmament program. Throughout this book, the implementation of each police human rights strategy is described, its influence on the police organization is examined, and the societal and institutional factors that facilitate or impede the implementation of the police human rights strategy are analyzed.


Violation of sepulchres is a common law crime in Scotland. This crime ensures that interred human corpses are not subject to the ordinary laws of property, but are instead protected under this distinct heading of law. While it now appears settled that a corpse can be stolen prior to interment, it remains unclear if a corpse which was once buried, but has since been lawfully removed from its grave, remains incapable of being stolen, or if it becomes susceptible to theft again when exhumed. This article suggests that the latter occurs in Scots law since a res religiosa – an object not subject to the ordinary rules of property – is created when the body is placed in its grave. This suggestion draws on the connection between the contemporary crime of violation of sepulchres and its Roman ancestor, the crimen violati sepulcri. The article suggests that though the overtly religious overtones of the term 'res religiosa' appears to be at odds with an increasingly secularised society, the law surrounding res religiosae functionally explains the absence of 'property' in buried bodies, thus providing a logical basis for the proposition that an unburied body may be stolen, but a buried body may not be.


The problem of maintaining a desired number of mobile agents on a network is not trivial, especially if what is required is a completely decentralized solution. Decentralized control makes a system more robust and less susceptible to partial failures. The problem of agent population management is exacerbated on wireless ad hoc networks where host mobility can result in significant changes in the network size and topology. System stability is also of critical importance. This paper analyzes the stability of a previously proposed ecology-inspired approach to agent population management, and proposes improvements. The stability of the new ecology based strategy is proved theoretically, and the conclusions are verified with a set of experiments.


The manual acquisition of terminological material from the domain-specific text material is a very time-consuming task. Recent advances in text-processing research provide a basis for automating this task. Computer-assisted term acquisition improves both the quantity and the quality of terminological work. This paper gives a brief overview of this new approach in terminology acquisition. Three subtasks are distinguished: compilation of an electronic text corpus, extraction of terminological data, and management of terminological data. Each of the subtasks will be discussed in some detail by identifying the core problems as well as proposed solutions. As a concrete initiative in this emerging field, we present an ongoing research project at the European Academy Bolzano, which illustrates the importance of computer-assisted terminology acquisition and of the resulting steps that have been taken in recent times. The paper concludes with a summary of five selected papers which have been presented at a workshop on corpus-based terminology in Bolzano. The full papers are published in this volume and in volume 4(2) of this journal.


: Purpose: The digitization of logistics processes depends on their integration meant as the connection of digitized business processes of the supply chain into a chain of electronically supported processes. A key aspect of integration is the automated transfer of data between integrated processes. The business processes of participants in supply chains vary in their degree of readiness for digitization. Design/Methodology/Approach: The author has carried out research of the features of three relatively new technologies used for exchange of electronic data. The reference for the analysis of these possibilities was the list of problems in digitization of business processes defined by the author. Based on his professional experience and on the basis of updated knowledge published by research centers, the author identified eleven main problems that hinder logistics processes digitization. The problems were of a structural nature, related to the components of the digital environment surrounding the enterprise. The study of the properties of these technologies for digital data exchange was performed as a comparative, theoretical test of their ability to support digitization. The author in search of a remedy for the identified problems of digitization, assumed as his goal the search for support tools in the elimination of structural digitization obstacles within the enterprise. Findings: As a result of study, description of specific features of each technology analyzed was presented in the form of explanation, how specific technical features fit to solve technical limitations of the company in the logistics digitization process. Practical implications: The efficiency of information flow in supply chains follows the traditional chain principle, i.e. it is determined by the effectiveness of their weakest link. Therefore, the author in this article made an attempt to assess the suitability of some currently available techniques and communication technologies to the diverse needs of enterprises. Originality value: In the author's opinion, the weakest link in the supply chain can be helped by giving it a choice of how to receive and process business data in electronic form. The study resulted in recommendations on the use of the technologies presented in the logistics processes digitization .


In order to account for spatial correlation in a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) channel using precoding over space-time block codes (STBC), an approach was proposed for the design of a linear precoder (H. Sampath and A. Paulraj, 2002). This approach works well for orthogonal STBC but fails in the case of non-orthogonal STBC. Based on a min-max problem formulation, a new design of the linear precoder is proposed in this paper. Simulation results in the case of quasi-orthogonal STBC (ABBA) are presented in order to show the gain over the conventional design approach and the non-precoded system


BACKGROUND
Atypical forms of autism may yield insights into the development and nature of the syndrome.

METHODS
We conducted a follow-up study of nine congenitally blind and seven sighted children who, eight years earlier, had satisfied formal diagnostic criteria for autism and had been included in groups matched for chronological age and verbal ability. In keeping with the original study, we met with teachers to discuss a DSM-based checklist of clinical features of autism, and conducted direct observations of the children to complete assessments on the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS; Schopler, Reichler, and Renner, 1986) and the Behavior Checklist for Disordered Preschoolers (BCDP; Sherman, Shapiro, & Glassman, 1983).

RESULTS
As predicted, a substantially higher proportion of blind (eight out of nine) than sighted (none out of seven) children now failed to meet formal DSM criteria for autism, and in keeping with BCDP ratings, they had significantly lower CARS scores.

CONCLUSIONS
Follow-up of nine congenitally blind children with autism revealed that, in adolescence, only one still satisfied diagnostic criteria for the syndrome. We consider the implications for theoretical perspectives on the development of autism.


At a wetland in southeastern Mexico a female of Telebasis filiola was observed and photographed preying on a small web-building spider of the genus Leucauge. This is the first record of gleaning by a representative of the genus Telebasis. A brief discussion on this subject in other odonates is provided.


This research sheds light onto the effects of welfare policies on anti-immigration attitudes by focusing on qualitative differences in these policies over time. Previous studies provide little evidence that welfare policies affect levels of anti-immigration attitudes because they view the welfare state in an overly abstract manner in relation to attitudes toward immigration. From this viewpoint, this research focuses on differences in a specific aspect of welfare policies, i.e. labor market policies, according to level and type of activation. By analyzing cross-national data over time, we determine that labor market policies in the form of activation policies indeed affect attitudes toward immigration. We also show that the effects vary across different types of labor market policies and depend on individual levels of socioeconomic vulnerability. Thus, this article provides a first step to rethinking how we conceptualize the welfare state in relation to anti-immigrant attitudes.


BACKGROUND
Healthcare workers (HCW) are at risk of acquiring blood-borne viral infections, particularly hepatitis B (HBV), hepatitis C (HCV), and HIV, especially in high endemic regions such as sub-Saharan Africa.

METHODS
Sera from 237 hospital workers in Southwest Cameroon were tested for anti-hepatitis B core antigen (anti-HBc), hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), anti-hepatitis B surface antigen (anti-HBs), anti-HCV and (on a voluntary basis) for anti-HIV. Information on pre-study testing for HBV, HCV and HIV and pre-study HBV vaccination status was collected from these individuals.

RESULTS
The pre-study testing rate among participating hospital staff for HBV was 23.6% (56/237), for HCV 16% (38/237), and for HIV 91.6% (217/237). The pre-study HBV vaccination rate was 12.3% (29/237). Analysis of anti-HBc revealed that 73.4% (174/237) of the hospital staff had been infected by HBV. Active HBV infection (HBsAg positivity) was detected in 15 participants. Anti-HCV was found in four of 237 participants, HIV antibodies were detected in four of 200 participants tested.

CONCLUSION
HBV and HCV are neglected diseases among HCW in sub-Saharan Africa. The vaccination rate against HBV was very low at 12.3%, and therefore anti-HBc testing should be mandatory to identify HCW requiring HBV vaccination. Testing for HBV and routine HBV vaccination for HBV-negative HCW should be strongly enforced in Cameroon.


The roller-compacted concrete pavement (RCCP) surface is almost smooth and without texture due to the vibrating rollers in the construction process. The lack of texturing causes a decrease in skid resistance in RCCP. For this purpose, different scenarios were proposed to create surface texture at micro and macro levels and provide the necessary friction. To provide friction at micro-scale, siliceous and calcareous sand and a combination of 50-50 of them with broken and natural aggregate shape was used in the construction of 8 RCCP mixing designs. In addition, in order to provide macro-texture, each of the eight mixing designs was texturing by methods such as seeding (three cases), stamping (two cases), and brooming (two cases). The purpose of this paper is to investigate the durability of various micro and macro textures created on RCCP surfaces by the simulation method proposed in the ASTM C 944 standard. The results showed that different textures have almost the same abrasion resistance. Among these, the seeding texture with the grain size of 4.75-9.5 mm has the weakest, and the stamp texture of 4 x 4 cm has the most durable abrasion resistance. Changes in abrasion resistance were associated with more changes in the mixing design. This means that crushed silica sand had the highest and natural lime sand had the lowest abrasion resistance. The results demonstrated that the combination of calcareous and siliceous materials improves abrasion resistance. In this regard, the higher the fracture rates of combined sand, the better the abrasion resistance.


Abstract A key step in probabilistic seismic-hazard assessment is the prediction of expected ground motions produced by the seismic sources. Most probabilistic studies use a ground-motion prediction model to perform this estimation. The present study aims at testing the use of simulations in the probabilistic analysis instead of ground-motion models. The method used is the empirical Green's function method of Kohrs-Sansorny et al. (2005), which takes into account the characteristics of the source, propagation paths, and site effects. The recording of only one small event is needed for simulating a larger event. The small events considered here consist of aftershocks from the M  6.4 Les Saintes earthquake, which struck the Guadeloupe archipelago (French Antilles) in 2004. The variability of the simulated ground motions is studied in detail at the sites of the French Permanent Accelerometric Array. Intrinsic variability is quantified: ground motions follow lognormal distributions with standard deviations between 0.05 and 0.18 (log units) depending on the spectral frequency. One input parameter bearing large uncertainties is the ratio of the stress drop of the target event to the small event. Therefore, overall sigma values (and medians) are recomputed, varying stress drop ratio values between 1 and 15. Sigma values increase but remain in general lower or equal to the sigma values of current ground-motion prediction models. A simple application of this hybrid deterministic–probabilistic method is carried out at several sites in Guadeloupe for the estimation of the hazard posed by an M  6.4 occurring in the rupture zone of the Les Saintes event.


This study embarked on identifying social and economic variables to predict violations of zero tolerance policies. The objective of this study was to identify a set of variables that may predict circumstance that lead a student to violate zero tolerance policies. This study explored whether a set of five risk factors: (i) grade level, (ii) retention, (iii) suspension, (iv) race, and (v) gender can predict the criterion variable, zero tolerance policies violation. The research design supports the examination of the null hypothesis of no predictive relationship between the predictor variables grade level, suspension, race, and gender and the criterion variable which is the violation of zero tolerance policies for middle and high school students. In this correlation research study, archival data was collected from the greater metro region of a northeastern state public school database for two school years: 2014-2015 and 2017-2018. Students were drawn from three middle schools and one high school in the district. A multiple linear regression was conducted to determine which of the independent variables: grade level, suspension, race, and gender are predictors of the violation of zero tolerance policies for middle school and high school students. The findings of the statistical analysis provided an understanding of which set of risk factor variables can predict zero tolerance policy violations among middle school and high school students.


This paper aims at examining the factors contributing to effective implementation of online learning in the Middle East higher education sector, through investigating the success and learning effectiveness of an innovative online learning model offered jointly by three prestigious universities in two different Arab countries. A mixed-method research approach was employed to triangulate data collected from key stakeholders engaged with the programme, namely senior managers and enrolled students, to derive findings that would inform managers, trainers and educators, from a systemic implementation, faculty-development and course-design perspective. Qualitative data gathered from face-to-face, semi-structured interviews with a number of senior managers took place delineated on the necessary enabling conditions to create, design and offer a quality online programme. Quantitative data collected from a student satisfaction survey examined factors contributing to perceived learning and student satisfaction in an online learning context. Following thematic analysis, five major factors were identified as critical for effective online learning implementation, namely: Rationale and Motivating Factors, Technology Infrastructure, E-Learning Pedagogy and Support Infrastructure, Course Design and Delivery and Lessons Learned. Results showed that Course Structure/Organisation, Learner Interaction, Student Engagement and Instructor Presence appeared to be the major factors contributing to high satisfaction and perceived learning. This paper argues that the shift towards blended and online modes of learning is inevitable, advocating the fundamental conception that online education is instrumental in expanding access to tertiary education. If properly designed and implemented, online education has the potential to alleviate academic rigor through improved faculty productivity at reduced tuition costs. Implications for further research and practical recommendations are also discussed.


Nowadays, our graduates have to cope with the pressure of the ever higher demands of formal education, a globalised job market or lifelong education. That learning a foreign language opens up new and coveted study or work opportunities has become a clich?. However, the teaching/learning of languages for occupational purposes have not lost their popularity, as the language tests in this area are becoming more and more relevant for recruitment across Europe. In this paper, the authors intend to dwell upon the (sometimes sore) subject of teaching/ learning specialized terms (or vocabulary/ language for specific purposes) in the language class, with an emphasis on the methods and strategies teachers may use in their task to guide students on the path to the optimal usage of such terms in their future career or education. In doing so the authors have analysed the practical language needs in industry and the implications of these needs for the language teaching syllabus and strategies. Thus, our main focus is the specialised language for real use either at university (post-graduate studies) or in the workplace, in other words, topics, situations and discourse features which make up scenarios of competent communication. In a technical university such as the "Politehnica" University of Bucharest, it is only natural for both teachers and students to use new technologies such as e-learning tools (tablets, laptops, or smartphones) in and out of the classroom, for a wide range of purposes. The very fact that technology encourages on-line communication to the detriment of face-to-face interaction triggers the necessity for a counterbalance, represented in the language class by collaborative tasks that require an accurate usage of the specialised language. The authors intend to present a few learning strategies that, in their experience, are proven to work when students need tips on how to properly use new technologies in studying a foreign language for specific purposes.


France's 25,000 professional photographers have, over the last 15 years, been facing considerable changes related to new digital technology, which have redefined the practices of the entire profession. The changing ways in which photography is created, produced and disseminated have resulted in a deregulated photography market and a weakening of that legal framework which previously secured photographers'incomes.This study is based on a survey conducted amongst a representative sample of 3000 photographers and on various interviews with professionals. It represents the sociodemographic characteristics of this expanding professional group (increasing by 37% over the last 15 years) which is being reinvigorated as the female proportion of the profession increases. It details the diversity of professional, legal and fiscal situations encompassed by the photographic profession and working conditions : market position, net incomes and changing photographic techniques.Finally the study reports how professionals portray their profession and the future : for example the changes required to adapt to new technologies, competition from amateur photographers, and the expectations they have expressed with regard to simplifying business and taxation regulations, access to continuing professional training and copyright protection for photographers.


ABSTRACT Our previous work indicated a predominance (56.8%) of Salmonella enterica serovar Newport among isolates recovered from irrigation ponds used in produce farms over a 2-year period (B. Li et al., Appl Environ Microbiol 80:6355–6365, http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/AEM.02063-14). This observation provided a valuable set of metrics to explore an underaddressed issue of environmental survival of Salmonella by DNA microarray. Microarray analysis correctly identified all the isolates (n = 53) and differentiated the S. Newport isolates into two phylogenetic lineages (S. Newport II and S. Newport III). Serovar distribution analysis showed no instances where the same serovar was recovered from a pond for more than a month. Furthermore, during the study, numerous isolates with an indistinguishable genotype were recovered from different ponds as far as 180 km apart for time intervals as long as 2 years. Although isolates within either lineage were phylogenetically related as determined by microarray analysis, subtle genotypic differences were detected within the lineages, suggesting that isolates in either lineage could have come from several unique hosts. For example, strains in four different subgroups (A, B, C, and D) possessed an indistinguishable genotype within their subgroups as measured by gene differences, suggesting that strains in each subgroup shared a common host. Based on this comparative genomic evidence and the spatial and temporal factors, we speculated that the presence of Salmonella in the ponds was likely due to numerous punctuated reintroduction events associated with several different but common hosts in the environment. These findings may have implications for the development of strategies for efficient and safe irrigation to minimize the risk of Salmonella outbreaks associated with fresh produce.


The use of software applications to develop and present course material via the internet has raised questions as to how far 'on-line learning' should be integrated into the academic programmes of study provided by higher education institutes. Responses to the opportunities presented by on-line learning in the UK have broadly fallen into three categories: individual departmental initiatives to use pedagogical technologies for a particular unit or programme of study; formation of strategic partnerships with private sector companies; and the founding of university consortia for the purposes of providing on-line courses (Collier 2001). This research puts forward the argument that although educational values and organisational practice have traditionally been held as discrete within academia, responses such as those outlined above will draw the educational and the organisational into a closer relationship with one another. This holds implications for both academic autonomy and professional identity and calls for a detailed account of the role that technologies will play in shaping this re-appraisal of higher education provision. The performative model of society (Strum and Latour 1988) will inform the interpretive, qualitative case study of two universities' responses to the challenge of integrating pedagogical technologies. At this stage, the contribution of this research in progress is to provide some conceptual foundations for considering activities associated with integrating pedagogical technologies from an organisation-wide perspective and to offer some preliminary findings suggested by initial fieldwork.


A total of 75 patients with various types of cataracts, 35 of these (37 eyes) with complicated cataracts, were examined. Patients with a history of antiglaucoma surgery were not included in the study. Extracapsular extraction of complicated cataracts with intercapsular implantation and suture-free fixation of B. N. Alexeyev's IOL-IKB A004 were carried out after B. N. Alexeyev. The patients were examined using keratometry, ophthalmometry, visometry, echography and echobiometry, biomicroscopy, ophthalmoscopy, pupil test, tonometry, electron tonography, refractometry, gonioscopy, and entoptic phenomena. The results indicate the possibility of extracapsular cataract extraction with intracapsular implantation of IOLs after Alexeyev in patients with complicated cataracts. The incidence of intra- and postoperative complications in patients with complicated cataracts concomitant with myopia, glaucoma, uveitis, and diabetes mellitus did not differ from that in patients with uncomplicated cataracts concomitant with the same conditions. Moreover, the incidence of postoperative complications was far less in comparison with implantation of other lenses, as reported by some authorities.


Redundant robots that are kinematically controlled using Jacobian pseudo-inverses may not have repeatable joint motions, when the end-effector traces a closed path in the workspace. This phenomenon is known as joint drift. The joint drift problem was initially observed and analyzed by Klein and Huang[lO]. Shamir and Yomdin(l5J also analyzed this problem using differential geometric approach. Klein and Kee[ll.] observed through numerical experiments that the drift had predictable properties. In this paper we present a measure of the drift motion, we show this measure is useful for predicting the stability properties of drifts. We further show that this measure of drift does indeed exhibit the properties numerically observed by Klein and Kee.


Among the eleven most common cancers, ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause of deaths after lung, breast, colorectal and pancreatic cancer. It is considered as a "silent killer" because of diagnosis at later stage. Ovarian cancer remains a disease for which improved non-invasive, serum or plasma screening tests are still lacking. Emphasis on research is to develop an effective test that can detect the disease in its earliest stages, which would ultimately result in decreased mortality. Many studies of ovarian cancer have focused on DNA repair genes, p53 genes and protein coding genes. However, RNA molecules transcribed from noncoding genes also have biological functions. Noncoding RNAs include microRNAs that cleave a target mRNA and repress translation of proteins. Many recent studies have suggested that miRNA deregulation is associated with the initiation and progression of human cancer. MicroRNAs affect various biological processes such as cell proliferation, differentiation, survival and mortality. Therefore, they are often called as tiny master regulators of the human genome. Exploration of potential of miRNAs in diagnosis and treatment of ovarian cancer can open a new therapeutic window in clinical research.


This paper presents the results of GIS modelling for predicting areas where natural landslides can occur in the Aparados da Serra region (Southern Brazil). The scarp is mainly developed upon basalts and dacites (Serra Geral Fm.) and sandstones (Botucatu Fm.) of the Parana Basin. The 1000 m high scarp has been geomorphologically evolving since the break-up of the Gondwana Supercontinent and the opening of the South Atlantic Ocean. Geologic, geomorphologic and geotechnical mapping were conducted in order to acquire field data and to define a conceptual geomorphologic-geotechnical model for GIS data modelling. These mappings were aided with ASTER image processing and aerial photograph analysis. ASTER images do permit a high resolution and accurate DEM. The prediction of areas able to develop natural landslides along the scarp was based upon Factor of Safety (FS) algorithms. The GIS modelling results for Aparados da Serra region were grouped into four categories. The areas with the lowermost FS number were defined as highly susceptible to developing natural landslides. Field investigations upon some existing landslide structures in the region do confirm such predictions. However, large scale FS determination through GIS modelling in order to predict susceptible areas for landslides must be interpreted in a relative manner. FS modelling can, then, be applied to landslide susceptibility mapping in areas of poor historical records, since supported by adequate geological and geotechnical investigations.


Growing concern for falls in acute care settings could be addressed with objective evaluation of fall risk. The current proof-of-concept study evaluated the feasibility of using a chest-worn sensor during hospitalization to determine fall risk. Physical activity and heart rate variability (HRV) of 31 volunteers admitted to a 29-bed adult inpatient unit were recorded using a single chest-worn sensor. Sensor data during the first 24-hour recording were analyzed. Participants were stratified using the Hendrich II fall risk assessment into high and low fall risk groups. Univariate analysis revealed age, daytime activity, nighttime side lying posture, and HRV were significantly different between groups. Results suggest feasibility of wearable technology to consciously monitor physical activity, sleep postures, and HRV as potential markers of fall risk in the acute care setting. Further study is warranted to confirm the results and examine the efficacy of the proposed wearable technology to manage falls in hospitals. [Journal of Gerontological Nursing, 43(7), 53-62.].


This study covers outcomes from field research in Maldives, completed in 2013. The research focus is on two main questions. The first deals with islanders' perceptions of the impacts of climatic variability within the past few years, and whether they maintain the same sense of threat from future climate change. The second question focuses on the issue of out-migration from the islands. It assesses whether migration may be evaluated as an adaptation strategy and whether local people are willing to move outside Maldives to neighboring countries because of projected sea level rise impacts. Mixed methods were used during field research, comprising in-depth qualitative interviews with local stakeholders and quantitative questionnaires among the general islander population, mostly in the capital Male and nearby islands. The results suggest that respondents do not perceive sea level rise to be an actual environmental challenge for their households at the present time. But they admit it could become one of the key factors affecting Maldivian society and livelihoods in the future. Quantitative research further reveals that more than 50 percent of respondents considered out-migration to be a potential need or adaptation option in the future. However, many other factors (cultural, religious, economic, and social) play an important role in the decision of whether to migrate. Moreover, the interviewed experts who participated in the qualitative interviews expressed a more complex attitude toward the adaptation-migration issue and stressed that much will need to be done to increase adaptive capacity in situ before migration becomes necessary. They perceive out-migration to be the last option, to be undertaken only after other adaptation measures are exhausted and the islands are devastated by climate change impacts.


Writing is a challenging and demanding skill for EFL learners in Vietnam. Teaching writing skills at Vietnamese universities is problematic since different approaches to writing have not been implemented effectively. Mainly, a genre-based approach to writing has not yet been implemented in EFL writing classrooms successfully. This paper investigates how the genre-based writing approach has been taught and learned at Van Lang University. The study mentions some critical notions of systemic functional linguistics, genre-based writing approach, and the importance and effects of genre-based approach to writing. 128 students turned in their midterm essays in week 5 of the 10-week writing course. These 128 expository essays were analyzed and synthesized using Microsoft Excel to calculate the differences in move-step structure. The findings indicated that the students had difficulty following the fixed move-step structure, and they also faced challenges of lexico-grammatical usage for the expository. Hence, the study suggests some implications for applying a genre-based approach to writing for EFL teachers and students and suggests further research.


A regression discontinuity approach is used to analyse the effect of the legislated increase in the UK national minimum wage that occurs at age 22 years on various labour market outcomes. Using data from the Labour Force Survey we find an increase of 3–4 percentage points in the rate of employment of low skilled individuals. Unemployment declines among men and inactivity among women. We find no such effect before the national minimum wage was introduced and no robust impacts at age 21 or 23 years. Our results are robust to a range of specification tests.


A classical weak focusing cyclotron can result in a simple and compact design for the radioisotope production for medical applications. Two main drawbacks arise from this type of machine. The energy limit imposed by the non RF-particle isochronism requires a careful design of the acceleration process, resulting in challenging requirements for the RF system. On the other hand, the weak focusing forces produced by the slightly decreasing magnetic field make essential to model the central region of the machine to improve the electric focalization with a reasonable phase acceptance. A complete analysis of the different beam losses, including vacuum stripping, has been performed. The main cyclotron parameters have been obtained by balancing the maximum energy we can obtain and the maximum beam transmission, resulting in an optimum radioisotope production.


Reflected diffusions in polyhedral domains are commonly used as approximate models for stochastic processing networks in heavy traffic. Stationary distributions of such models give useful information on the steady state performance of the corresponding stochastic networks and thus it is important to develop reliable and efficient algorithms for numerical computation of such distributions. In this work we propose and analyze a Monte- Carlo scheme based on an Euler type discretization of the reflected stochastic differential equation using a single sequence of time discretization steps which decrease to zero as time approaches infinity. Appropriately weighted empirical measures constructed from the simulated discretized reflected diffusion are proposed as approximations for the invariant probability measure of the true diffusion model. Almost sure consistency results are established that in particular show that weighted averages of polynomially growing continuous functionals evaluated on the discretized simulated system converge a.s. to the corresponding integrals with respect to the invariant measure. Proofs rely on constructing suitable Lyapunov functions for tightness and uniform integrability and characterizing almost sure limit points through an extension of Echeverria's criteria for reflected diffusions. Regularity properties of the underlying Skorohod problems play a key role in the proofs. Rates of convergence for suitable families of test functions are also obtained. A key advantage of Monte-Carlo methods is the ease of implementation, particularly for high dimensional problems. A numerical example


The purpose of this essay is to understand and analyze why people read a local newspaper and which needs it can fulfill. The newspaper indistry is changing and so is the way we consume news. Today the readers are seen as an active group of people who choose the media, which fulfills their needs in the best possible way. This essay is based on a case study of the local newspaper Barometern. We used a qualitative research method and have done eight interviews. The people we interviewed where in the age of 30-40 and are subscribers or frequent readers of Barometern. The empirical material that where generated from the interviews made out the basis of our analysis. The conclusion of this case study is that people have six different needs of which they seek fulfilling. Of these six needs, Barometern satisfies five of them. For deeper analysis of how these needs are satisfied, continue reading chapter five. Since we worked with a qualitative method we don't intend to make any generalizations of our conclusions. The conclusions only apply to our study of Barometern.


The present study aims at optimising the nitrification and denitrification phases at intermittently aerated process (activated sludge) removing nitrogen from municipal wastewater. The nitrogen removal performance recorded at 22 intermittently aerated plants was compared to the results obtained from the simulations given by the widely used ASM1. It is shown that simulations with a single value for the heterotrophic yield with any electron acceptor over-predict the nitrate concentration in the effluent of treatment plants. The reduction of this coefficient by 20% for anoxic conditions reduces the nitrate concentration by 10 g N·m-3. It significantly improves the accuracy of the predictions of nitrate concentrations in treated effluents compare to real data. Simulations with dual values (aerobic and anoxic conditions) for heterotrophic yield (modified ASM1) were then used to determine the practical daily aerobic time interval to meet a given nitrogen discharge objective. Finally, to support design decisions, the relevance of a pre-denitrification configuration in front of an intermittently aerated tank was studied. It is shown that when the load of BOD5 is below the conventional design value, a small contribution of the anoxic zone to nitrate removal occurs, except for over-aerated plants. When plants receive a higher load of BOD5, the modified ASM1 suggests that the anoxic zone has a higher contribution to nitrogen removal, for both correctly and over-aerated plants.


During glass reflow of contact vias in VLSI processing, occurrences of a sidewall overhang (i.e., bulging and, as a result, formation of a reentrant angle at the base of a via) and, in extreme cases, closure of vias were observed when a low temperature flowing borophosphosilicate glass was used with closely spaced vias. A detailed consideration of the forces and mechanisms involved in reflow indicates that neither the chemical nature of the glass nor the specific processing parameters of reflow are factors in altering this phenomenon. Consideration of an idealized geometry shows that a sidewall overhang within vias will occur after reflow if the glass thickness is more than a critical fraction of the spacing between vias; this critical fraction is calculated to occur near a value of 0.4. At all glass thicknesses, a certain amount of overhang will develop at an intermediate stage of reflow, but then this overhang disappears for a subcritical glass thickness or grows for a supercritical glass thickness. In extreme cases, a large overhang can lead to spreading at the glass‐substrate interface, which contributes to closure of vias.


Abstract Healthcare projects with apparent productivity gaps require all available IT innovation mechanisms. The objective of this study is to investigate the predictors of the development of IT innovation mechanisms to improving healthcare business. This includes the utilization of the panel data in healthcare projects and the analysis of the relationship between IT innovation mechanisms and operational decision-making. The paper indicates that the implementation of innovative IT technology has a significant positive effect on the healthcare project productivity in Canadian hospitals.


This thesis focussed on improving the classification and reporting of heroin-related deaths in Australia in order to improve our understanding of this problem and to improve public health interventions. This research involved the examination of a large series of heroin-related deaths reported to the coroner and working with the AIHW and ABS. It also involved the linkage of coronial data with Ambulance Victoria records to examine the safety of clinical management of heroin overdose in the community, and the impact of Take-Home Naloxone in Victoria. Street-level heroin was also examined to explore the contribution that this may have to overdose.


The scope of agritourism activities is related to the existent territorial infrastructure. For this reason there is a pronounced differentiation and diversification of rural tourism and agritourism types in the South-Muntenia Region which sometimes generate confusion. Meaning that, according to the economic character, the Danubian rural area can delimitate villages with agricultural functions (based on the production of cereals, as well as the viticultural and zootechnical productions), those with agri-industrial functions, with agricultural and fishing functions and villages with agricultural and tourism functions. As such, the agritourism of the area considered these very mixed types characterized by the irregularity of the touristic services. We refer to the uniqueness due to the Danubian geographic area, but also to the uniqueness in time (mostly due to the fact that the agritourism season is constantly different). This context brings out the need to know and evaluate the different types of infrastructure which limit the tourist's access in the area.


Belief revision always results in trusting new evidence, so it may admit an unreliable one and discard a more confident one. We therefore use belief change instead of belief revision to remedy this weakness. By introducing  epistemic states, we take into account of the strength of evidence that influences the change of belief. In this paper, we present a set of postulates to characterize belief change by epistemic states and establish representation  theorems to characterize those postulates. We show that from an epistemic state, a corresponding ordinal conditional function by Spohn can be derived and the result of combining two epistemic states is thus reduced to the result from combining two corresponding ordinal conditional functions proposed by Laverny and Lang. Furthermore, when reduced to the belief revision situation, we prove that our results induce all the Darwiche and Pearl's postulates.


A method for the nucleophilic fluorination of heptamethyl aryl trisiloxanes to form fluoroarenes is reported. The reaction proceeds in the presence of Cu(OTf) 2 and KHF 2 as the fluoride source under mild conditions for a broad range of heptamethyltrisiloxyarenes with high functional group tolerance. The combination of this method with the silylation of aryl C-H bonds enables the regioselective fluorination of non-activated arenes controlled by steric effects following a two-step protocol.


This phenomenological study of a First Nations to First Nations reciprocal student exchange elicited and explored the meanings of a reciprocal intercommunity exchange for grade 7 and 8 students in two First Nations schools. Representative student research participants from one of the schools shared their pictures, stories and memories of their experiences through photo-story (Truchon, 2007; Wang & Burris, 1997) and in a sharing circle (Lavallee, 2007). The students" journeys were not only physical and geographical, but also emotional and cultural. I also journeyed to an acceptance of my outsider/insider status growing up in a First Nations community. As a non-Aboriginal researcher, I negotiated a space between the demands of the academic institution and the First Nations community; and chose research methods that were congruent with Indigenous Research Methodology (Wilson, 2008; Kovach, 2009; Smith, 1999). The four themes that emerged from the data: community and relationships; culture and ceremony; connections with place, and confidence building are congruent with AFN"s vision of "reciprocal inter-community exchanges promoting sharing of culture" (AFN, 2007) and with Cajete"s (1999) vision of "igniting the sparkle." These students said that: "learning about another culture made me want to learn more about my own." Listening to these students share what was gained through this exchange and their dreams for the future revealed their hope and persistence. The example of a practice such as a reciprocal exchange which encouraged and


The technique of somatic cell hybridization and the concept of tumour suppressor genes share a common history. Somatic cell hybrids between mammalian tumour cells and their normal cellular counterparts invariably are non-tumorigenic, establishing the recessive genetic nature of tumorigenicity. The development of cytogenetics and microcell hybridization has provided methods for localization of the tumour suppressor genes to specific chromosomal regions. Continuing studies of this type will facilitate the isolation of these genes by molecular methods including differential cDNA screening and 'reverse genetics'.


The statement claiming that the raised employees' engagement level will eventually help increase the employees' well-being and work performance has not previously vastly tested, specifically within faculty members of higher educational institutions (HEIs). The scarcity of noteworthy studies on the antecedents and outcomes of employee engagement is addressed while a complete, holistic and comprehensive model is presented in the paper that presents a rational basis on which further testing of the hypotheses could be identified and tested to verify the theory. Based on the job demands resources model (JDR), it is hypothesized in the current study that work engagement would be influenced by job resources and also engagement in turn have a positive impact on employees in role and extra role performance behaviors. We used a non-experimental design study with a survey sample of N=189 permanent full time teachers participated in the study. Structural equation modeling were applied to test the model empirically, the results showed that only one job resource out of three had a positive significant effect on boosting work engagement. Additionally, the employee engagement at workplace was also found positively and significantly influencing employees' self rated performance. The current study also discussed the implications of these findings with respect to theory and practice.


A recent study by Christakis and Fowler (2008) found that when one or two people in a social network stop smoking, others in that network also tend to stop as well—highlighting both the importance of social networks and the potential to virally spread behavior change. Dr. Donna Vallone will discuss research related to prompting online social engagement and participation in the EX community, a component of the web-based smoking cessation program, www.becomeanex.org. Evidence suggests that these online social networks can provide social support to online smokers interested in quitting—a critical component of cessation treatment outlined in the US Clinical Guidelines for Smoking Cessation. Social media applications of EX on Facebook, Twitter and other channels will also be discussed. Citation Information: Cancer Prev Res 2011;4(10 Suppl):ED05-02.


Blood And Gold: Hungarians in Australia, E. F. Kunz, F. W. Cheshire, 1969, pp.301. $A7.50. THE title of the book is pretentious, too glamorous and not quite fitting the content of the book as there was little gold sought or found by the few Hungarian immigrants who came to Australia during the gold rush. The blood part of the title is also. exaggerated, since from all accounts the Hungarian immigrants in Australia fared reasonah)B well wer the period studied in comparison with other immigrant groups, who Could easily claim more suffering and greater sacrifice.


Calculations of rate constants for the reactions of N+ with NH3 and H2O are presented. A combined rotationally adiabatic capture and centrifugal sudden approximation is used. The results are compared with those obtained in CRESU measurements at 27, 68 and 163 K, and SIFT experiments at 300 K. For the N++ H2O reaction, the agreement between both sets of experimental results and the calculations is excellent. For the N++ NH3 reaction, our calculation agrees well with the SIFT result at 300 K, but the CRESU rate constants fall below the calculated values. Both experimental and theoretical rate constants show a strong negative temperature dependence. The sensitivity of the rate constants to the initial rotational states j and K is examined.


This is an 'introduction to statistics for those who prefer words to mathematical symbols'. Not a book, one might think, that should be reviewed in the Gazette. But it has something to offer anyone who teaches an introductory course in statistics. The book is aimed at American college students with little mathematical training. As might be expected, there is a substantial amount on descriptive statistics (including elementary methods for time series); estimation and hypothesis-testing are included and, what is often left out of elementary texts, there are chapters on planning experiments and sample surveys. It serves its prime audience in the best tradition of American textbooks: careful and full explanations, lots of exercises (with answers), a few gimmicky cartoons; all well-printed on spacious pages. Since so much is brought 'out of a hat' the author is not inhibited from introducing many ideas that more mathematical tests ignore as being too difficult; discriminant analysis, autoregressive model, principal components, all get a mention (but not much more). There are proposals for simple computer projects scattered through the book. The approach of the author represents a laudable revolt against the 'how to calculate' courses that are often given to non-mathematicians. The theoretical core of statistics consists of mathematical models and their implications, but statistics (let me define it as 'methods of investigation of human and natural phenomena using data') is much wider. Complementary to the mathematics is a wide range of concepts, some controversial and some half-formed, on which the mathematics is based and by which the mathematics is interpreted. Nonmathematicians gain far more from being taught these underlying concepts than from being drilled in how to plug numbers into formulae. There is a moral for the mathematically-based courses too. Mathematics is not all, for the student of statistics. The concepts that can only be discussed in words are as important. This book provides the teacher with some useful examples and exercises to help his students do this.


The focus of this Diploma thesis is the development of a new approach for the analysis of crystal orientations in polar ice, based on digital image processing. The c-axes orientations are measured on thin ice sections using automated polarized light microscopy. The measured data are stored in form of high-resolution digital images which have been evaluated only manually so far. The automatic detection of grains and grain boundaries and the extraction of their orientation and shape parameters enable a statistical acquisition of the ice microstructure. The analysis of c-axes distributions, grain sizes, misorientations between adjacent grains, grain boundary orientations etc. allows for conclusions about the active recrystallization mechanisms. This is of high importance for an improved understanding of ice deformation and ice flow. The developed program is applied to analyze the microstructure in the NEEM ice core (Greenland).


The methods of electron microscopy, resistometry and magnetometry are used to study ten (36-38)Co - (32-36)Ni - (27-30)Al (at. %) alloys. Cast coarse-crystalline and microcrystalline alloys made by melt spinning in a helium atmosphere are considered. It is shown that the martensite start temperature Ms becomes 30-50°C lower as grains are refined to 1 m m. Replacement of 1 at. % cobalt by nickel and 1 at. % aluminum by nickel makes the temperature interval of the В2«L10 martensite transformation (30-60)°C and (100-110)°C higher respectively. The martensite transformation hysteresis is about 100 degrees. The melt-spun Co38Ni34Al28 alloy with the transformation temperatures Мs = 31°С, Мf = –34°С, Аs = –6°С, Аf = 70°С and Тс = 98°С is a material possessing the magnetically controlled shape memory effect.


Alumni are graduates of any higher education institution (HEI) that plays a vital role in the attainment of quality education. They are considered as the institution's most valuable asset and serve as the role model to students and to the community. In Oman, HEIs are facing difficulty in establishing, managing and maintaining connections with alumni and other stakeholders. Hence, this paper aims to design a theoretical framework for an alumni tracking information system that would help in establishing an online communication between HEIs and their alumni. This project aims to design a web-based alumni tracking information system that is highly needed by institutions in Oman to meet the requirements of Standard 5 of the Oman Academic Accreditation Authority (OAAA) and stakeholders. This project is not only aligning an HEI's strategic directions towards the improvement of the quality of programmes that an HEI is offering but also strengthening of placement and linkages where alumni are deemed as potential stakeholders and also to transform an HEI's system into automation and paperless alumni related transactions.


Objectives To examine the effect of body mass index (BMI) on postoperative 30-day morbidity and mortality after surgery for ovarian cancer (OC). Methods Patients with OC were identified from the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program from 2005 to 2011. Women were divided into 3 groups: nonobese (BMI <30 kg/m2), obese (30 to <40 kg/m2), and morbidly obese (≥40 kg/m2). Multivariable logistic regression models were performed. Results Of 2061 women included in this study, 1336 (65%) were nonobese, 560 (27%) were obese, and 165 (8%) were morbidly obese. The overall 30-day mortality and morbidity rates for the entire cohort were 2% and 31%, respectively. In multivariate analyses adjusting for confounders, both obese (odds ratio [OR], 0.9; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.4–2.0; P = 0.87) and morbid obesity (OR, 0.8; 95% CI, 0.1–3.0; P = 0.73) were not significant predictors of increased 30-day postoperative mortality. Likewise, rates of any complication in 30 days were comparable between nonobese, obese, and morbidly obese patients (31% vs. 28% vs. 33%, respectively; P = 0.35) with no significant difference even after adjusting for other confounders (OR, 0.9; 95% CI, 0.7–1.1; P = 0.26 and OR, 1.1; 95% CI, 0.7–1.6; P = 0.70, respectively). Obese and morbidly obese patients were more likely to have diabetes, hypertension requiring medications, cardiac morbidities, higher American Society of Anesthesiologists class, and leukocytosis and less likely to have weight loss before surgery. Conclusions With appropriate control for confounding comorbidities, the 30-day morbidity and mortality rates for the obese and morbidly obese patients undergoing surgery for OC do not seem to differ. Therefore, reported inferior long-term survival for these patients is likely related to a different phase of their disease and treatment process and is deserving of further investigation.


Extranodal lymphoma may present as an abdominal mass without evidence of disease elsewhere. Predominant pancreatic involvement with lymphoma is rare. Presenting as a pancreatic mass, it may be difficult to differentiate if from carcinoma. Ultrasound-guided fine needle biopsy and immunocytochemistry are helpful in establishing a histological diagnosis. It is important to differentiate lymphoma from carcinoma, because lymphoma is treated differently and has a better prognosis.


Agency theory plays an important role in explaining the behaviour of managers of microfinance institutions (MFIs). These managers face the same problem of simultaneously satisfying conflicting goals as the managers of for-profit companies. In the case of MFIs, a fundamental conflict occurs as management attempts to balance the organization's social mission against the organization's need for financial viability. Our paper investigates this issue. We first develop the goal conflict issue as an agency issue. We then develop quantitative measures of financial stress, wealth of borrowers, and the number of loans in the MFI's loan portfolio. We use OLS regression to measure the relationship between these variables. The resulting regression equation is highly significant, and the variables in the equation all possess the sign predicted by agency theory.


Silica sinters deposited from hot springs have been found associated with volcanic rocks of Late Devonian to late Carboniferous age in north Queensland, Australia. These deposits have many features in common with modern hot-spring sinters, such as those of the Taupo Volcanic Zone in New Zealand. They occur associated with subaerial volcanic rocks and are locally found with air-fall tuffs and fluvial and lake deposits in which hydrothermal eruption breccias are common. The associated rocks are extensively hydrothermally altered and are cut by silica veins showing characteristic epithermal vein textures; the silica veins contain low-salinity fluid inclusions trapped at epithermal temperatures, and there is evidence of boiling.

Textures preserved in the sinters are identical to those found in modern sinters; they include columnar structures similar to bacterial stromatolites described from Yellowstone National Park, as well as striated surfaces apparently resulting from silica deposition on filamentous algae. Plant fossils, including Oxroadia gracilis , are abundant. Criteria applied to identify these ancient sinters may be applied to other possible sinter deposits and may provide evidence indicating the level of exposure of the former geothermal system, which may be an important guide in exploration for epithermal precious-metal deposits.


Computers, regardless of their function, are always better if they can operate more quickly. The addition of computation resources allows for improved response times, greater functionality and more flexibility. The drawback with improving a computer's performance, however, is that it often comes at the cost of power and energy consumption. For many platforms, this is not an issue—desktop computers, for instance, have been consuming an increasing amount of power yet because they comprise a small fraction of a household's overall power consumption, this increase is tolerated.
Power increases are not tolerated, however, in modern mobile devices. These devices do more and more each generation and are deployed in increasingly interesting environments—whether it is the common smart phone, a portable medical imaging device or a complex sensor-processor used for disaster relief. Even in less portable circumstances, such as servers used for high-throughput computation, reducing power consumption is an important way to reduce the cost of operating the server.
This thesis studies various applications from these and other domains that require ever-increasing compute ability but cannot tolerate a similar increase in power consumption. These domains include wireless signal-processing, portable medical imaging and scientific computing. These applications are analyzed in detail to ascertain the most appropriate hardware substrates and microarchitectural structures to help deliver the best performance-per-power efficiency.
The architectures evaluated included fixed-function and flexible loop accelerators, SIMD data-engines, general-purpose graphics-processing units and general-purpose processors. These architectures were improved in ways that increased programmability, instruction-level parallelism, memory bandwidth, and average throughput; and reduced control-divergence overhead, effective memory latency, and data-dependent stalls. These modifications led to solutions with 50 times the performance-per-power efficiency as current designs.


BACKGROUND
It was recently discovered that abundant and stable extracellular RNA (exRNA) species exist in bodily fluids. Saliva is an emerging biofluid for biomarker development for noninvasive detection and screening of local and systemic diseases. Use of RNA-Sequencing (RNA-Seq) to profile exRNA is rapidly growing; however, no single preparation and analysis protocol can be used for all biofluids. Specifically, RNA-Seq of saliva is particularly challenging owing to high abundance of bacterial contents and low abundance of salivary exRNA. Given the laborious procedures needed for RNA-Seq library construction, sequencing, data storage, and data analysis, saliva-specific and optimized protocols are essential.

METHODS
We compared different RNA isolation methods and library construction kits for long and small RNA sequencing. The role of ribosomal RNA (rRNA) depletion also was evaluated.

RESULTS
The miRNeasy Micro Kit (Qiagen) showed the highest total RNA yield (70.8 ng/mL cell-free saliva) and best small RNA recovery, and the NEBNext library preparation kits resulted in the highest number of detected human genes [5649-6813 at 1 reads per kilobase RNA per million mapped (RPKM)] and small RNAs [482-696 microRNAs (miRNAs) and 190-214 other small RNAs]. The proportion of human RNA-Seq reads was much higher in rRNA-depleted saliva samples (41%) than in samples without rRNA depletion (14%). In addition, the transfer RNA (tRNA)-derived RNA fragments (tRFs), a novel class of small RNAs, were highly abundant in human saliva, specifically tRF-4 (4%) and tRF-5 (15.25%).

CONCLUSIONS
Our results may help in selection of the best adapted methods of RNA isolation and small and long RNA library constructions for salivary exRNA studies.


Purpose: The number of intracavitary hdr brachytherapy devices available to treat women with early stage breast cancer has increased significantly in the past several years. Blending the dosimetry of interstitial and the ease of use of MammoSite; SAVI, Contura, and Clearpath have made their way into the arena. One would postulate that the evolution of the devices in the sense of dose modulation, from least to greatest, would be MammoSite, Contura, Clearpath, and finally SAVI. This stems from the location of peripheral struts in relation to the cavity boundary. In this study, we compare the dosimetry between the 4 devices and assess their efficacy through dose volume histograms (DVH) and maximum point doses of critical structures. Comparing these modalities will help determine either the best overall treatment device or the best device for a particular type of patient. Materials and Methods: Nine patients treated with SAVI at UC San Diego were selected for this comparison. CT scans were retrospectively evaluated for delivery of APBI via MammoSite, Contura and Clearpath by simulating them in place of the SAVI in the lumpectomy cavity. The anterior tissue surrounding the balloon devices was linearly expanded to simulate tissue displacement by the balloon. All plans were generated using Brachyvision TPS (Varian Medical Systems, Palo Alto, CA). Results: DVHs of the target volume were evaluated against planning criteria taken from the NSABP B‐39 protocol. All devices met the criteria and had similar target coverage (V90 ∼ 98%). However, there were differences in the dose received by normal tissue with skindose lowest in SAVI patients (∼71% of prescribed dose). This was followed by Contura, MammoSite and Clearpath, respectively. Conclusions: All devices had similar coverage of the target volume, but SAVI had the most dose flexibility for patients with close skin spacing and chestwall proximity.


This article advances a couple-level framework to examine how parenthood shapes within-family gender inequality by education in three countries that vary in their normative and policy context: the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. We trace mothers' share of couple earnings and variation by her education in the 10-year window around first birth, using long-running harmonized panel surveys from the 1990s and 2000s (N = 4,117 couples and 28,488 couple-years) and an event study methodology that leverages within-couple variation in earnings pre- and post-birth. Our results show steep declines in her share of couple earnings following first birth across the three countries that persist over several years of follow-up. Declines are smallest in the United States, due to U.S. mothers' higher employment and longer work hours. Declines are also smaller among female partners without a college degree in the United States, where mothers have less work-family support and fewer options to manage work and family on one income. Results shed light on how parenthood plays into gender inequality within couples, and how country context shapes couple dynamics and inequality across households.


Several practical methods are proposed for the implementation of linear filters that reject multiple-access noise in direct sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA) receivers. These methods rely on taking advantage of variations in the received chip spectrum, and do not require locking and despreading multiple signals. The resulting structures are simple, and some can operate at a high chip rate. Adaptive structures are also proposed. It is shown that a close relationship exists between noise whitening and chip-equalization for a DS-CDMA receiver. System issues affecting the choice of the chip spectrum, and thus the applicability of these methods, are described.


This paper uses a two-good version of Hall's (1978) representative agent, permanent income model to derive a structural import demand equation for nondurable consumer goods. Under the identification restriction that taste shocks are stationary, the model is shown to imply that log imports, log domestic goods, and the log relative price of imports are co-integrated. The data decisively reject the null hypothesis that imports, the relative price of imports, and the consumption of home goods are not co-integrated. We employ the non-linear least squares technique recently proposed by Phillips and Loretan (1990> to estimate the parameters of the import demand equation. The long-run price elasticity of import demand is estimated to be -0.95. The elasticity of import demand with respect to a permanent increase in real spending is estimated to be 2.20. These estimates fall within the range reported in studies by Helkie and Hooper (1986), Cline (1989), and the many studies surveyed by Goldstein and Kahn (1985) The message of this paper is that, at least for non-durable consumer goods, it is possible to interpret the traditional import demand equation as a co-integrating regression, and to interpret the price and expenditure elasticities estimated from such a trade equation as a co-integrating vector. Estimates of the co-integrating vector can be used to recover estimates of the utility parameters of the representative household. The similarity between the OLS and Phillips-Loretan estimates of the parameters suggests that the simultaneous equation bias is not large.


Supercells are often used in ab initio calculation in order to model compound alloys, surfaces and defects. One of the main challenges of supercell electronic structure calculations is to recover Bloch character of electronic eigenstates perturbed by a disorder. Here we apply the spectral weight approach to unfolding of the electronic structure of group III-V and II-VI semiconductor solid solutions. The illustrative examples include: formation of localized donor-like states in dilute GaP:N and associated enhancement of its optical activity, direct observation of the valence band anicrossing in dilute GaAs:Bi, and a topological band crossover in ternary (HgCd)Te alloy accompanied by emergence of high-mobility Kane fermions. The analysis facilitates interpretation of optical and transport characteristics of alloys that are otherwise "obscure" in traditional first-principle supercell calculations.


Using short-term experiments, the uptake by corn seedlings of Rb⁸⁶ from soil and from osmotic solutions has been measured under various levels of moisture stress and oxygen pressure. Soil moisture tensions, up to 12 atm., were developed using pressure plate apparatus appropriate to the tensions desired, and the osmotic studies were conducted with a highly porous, expanded perlite material wetted with aqueous solutions of mannitol. Continuous flushing with gas mixtures of air and nitrogen was used to maintain the oxygen partial pressures desired. Moisture stresses developed from soil moisture tensions and from osmotic solutions differed markedly in their effect on Rb⁸⁶ absorption. The ion uptake decreased rapidly with initial increases in soil moisture tension and leveled out at higher tensions to give a curve nearly logarithmic in nature. Increasing osmotic pressure caused only a slight decrease in absorption of Rb⁸⁶ by the corn seedlings. The ion uptake from soil was nearly a straight line function of moisture content. Initial increases in oxygen concentration of the gaseous environment at each level of soil moisture tension or osmotic pressure resulted in increased uptake of Rb⁸⁶. In soil, however, the minimum oxygen content at which ion absorption reached a level value decreased with increasing soil moisture tension.


Verb morphology is often an area of extraordinary difficulty for children with specific language impairment (SLI). However, in Hebrew, this difficulty appears to be more circumscribed than in other languages. In a recent study by Dromi et al., the limitations exhibited by a group of Hebrew-speaking children with SLI were confined primarily to the use of agreement inflections within past tense. This difficulty was interpreted as being due to the fact that the agreement paradigm within past tense is rather complex (involving person, number, and gender, along with tense). This study explores another possibility--that these inflections were difficult because they required past tense in particular. Also determined was whether the children's frequent use of the morphologically simplest forms (such as past third person masculine singular) in place of the correct forms could be interpreted as their selection of a non-finite default form. A group of Hebrew-speaking children with SLI (age 4.2 to 6.1) participated, along with a group of age controls, and a group of younger normally developing children matched for mean length of utterance (MLU). The children listened to stories that were accompanied by pictures. During each story, the children completed the experimenter's incomplete sentences using appropriate verbs. To complete the sentences accurately, the children had to alter the tense or finiteness of the verb used by the experimenter in the preceding sentence. The results indicated that the children with SLI had more difficulty than both comparison groups in the production of basic present and past forms and infinitive forms of verbs that required use of one particular phonological template or 'binyan'. However, for the verbs requiring the remaining three phonological templates, the children with SLI were as capable as MLU controls in their command of past as well as present tense, and in their use of infinitive forms. It is concluded that tense and finiteness probably do not form the core of the problem faced by Hebrew-speaking children with SLI in the area of verb morphology.


Abstract Faced with confinement due to COVID-19, educational institutions with face-to-face models had to continue their activities under conditions and with resources not used up to that moment. For this, the institutions formulated and put into operation continuity plans, which involved everything from remote education to hybrids between the latter and online education. Institutions that already had online or hybrid education programs were able to apply that experience to their face-to-face programs, allowing them to respond more quickly than those that did not. The stages of the teaching-learning process that were "adjusted" during this emergency in order to give continuity to educational activities were the last two, namely: the development of instructional material and teaching. In this work, an intervention is proposed in a previous stage of the process, that is, in the instructional design (ID), using the ASSURE model derived from the ADDIE model or approach. This intervention is based on the lessons learned during the pandemic, for the preparation or reformulation of study plans that consider information and communication technologies as a platform to enhance the effectiveness of learning, selecting them and establishing their use strategy from the stage in which the materials are designed, which may be useful considering that even if the students return to the classrooms, a virtual part will be preserved, that is, a hybrid model, in which the face-to-face-virtual ratio will be determined by the educational strategy of the institution.


Automatic question generation (QG) has shown promise as a source of synthetic training data for question answering (QA). In this paper we ask: Is textual diversity in QG beneficial for downstream QA? Using top-p nucleus sampling to derive samples from a transformer-based question generator, we show that diversity-promoting QG indeed provides better QA training than likelihood maximization approaches such as beam search. We also show that standard QG evaluation metrics such as BLEU, ROUGE and METEOR are inversely correlated with diversity, and propose a diversity-aware intrinsic measure of overall QG quality that correlates well with extrinsic evaluation on QA.


Dilatometer is often used for in situ measurement of phase transformation by monitoring the length change during heating or cooling cycle. However, the inevitable temperature gradient across the specimen length during inductive heating, introduces uncertainty in temperature measurements and hence the associated phase transformation kinetics. Due to this uncertainty, it is more meaningful to interpret the transformation kinetics from dilatometry in terms transformation ranges instead of unique values of fraction transformed. In the present work, a probabilistic approach has been used to predict the fraction transformed ranges, arising due to the temperature gradient during dilatometry. The approach has been validated for Fe-5.93 at.% Ni undergoing austenite to ferrite phase transformation at various constant cooling rates.


Modern data centers in many aspects are akin to industrial plants that generate a lot of heat by consuming substantial amount of energy and require powerful cooling and ventilation. Cooling system contributes with 30 to 50% of the total energy consumption of data centers. An effective way to address energy efficiency in such cooling systems is to apply advanced automation solutions, similar to that of industrial and building automation systems. However, existing automation solutions are not flexible enough to meet requirements of cooling systems in modern data centres. This paper is an endeavour to utilize distributed adaptive automation architecture in order to improve energy efficiency of cooling. The proposed automation algorithms are validated in a simulation environment which models the thermal behaviour of a server room and helps to find the most energy efficient control strategy for controlling the cooling devices. This paper describes the simulation tool comprising of thermal behaviour modelling in MATLAB/SIMULINK connected in closed-loop with the distributed control environment of IEC 61499 standard. Simulation of a typical server room under certain constraints using the proposed tool is described and the results are presented. The results demonstrate the potential of improving higher energy efficiency, flexibility and better decision-making ability for controlling the cooling systems.


With the rapid advancement of information technology, virtual reality technology has also gradually developed, accompanied by the dramatic growth of virtual reality experiment technology. At present, the space design-oriented virtual experiment teaching method usually contributes to the formation of undesired experiment habits among students, such as caring less about experiment instruments, attaching less importance to the norms of experiment operation, and the lack of awareness of safety precautions. At the same time, virtual experiment may lead to reduced communications in the learning process and fewer opportunities for students to exercise interpersonal skills, thus affecting the teaching effect to a certain extent. On this basis, a teaching method of applying virtual simulation technology to the course of space design was proposed in this study. The analysis of the current development status and characteristics of virtual simulation technology was followed by a detailed description of the use of software in the construction entity and a series of computer-aided teaching and developing processes concerning space, design, function, etc. in the case of space design. Through the survey, it was found that students have more recognition of the new teaching method and their learning efficiency is improved, indicating that this teaching model is significantly better than other traditional teaching methods.


This paper examines whether the linear decision-making process is used in the context of agile project teams using scrum practices and to identify factors that negatively influence the linear decision-making process during the sprint planning and daily scrum meetings. We conducted 34 interviews and 18 observations across four agile project teams. Our findings show that a linear decision-making process is not always followed in these two meetings and that a number of factors can negatively influence the linear decision-making process. As these teams work to short, tight deadlines and need to make informed decisions quickly in order to meet short-term goals, these factors can negatively impact on the team and result in sprint failure or reduced effort by team members. This research contributes to the decision-making literature and project management literature by highlighting difficulties applicable to decision-making in an agile environment.


This article describes the development of an autonomous robotic system for playing mini-golf. The system was designed and built to serve as a demonstration of robotic application for engineering students. The system was built using a Yasakawa robot fitted with two arms. The software was developed to control the machine using the C++ language. Standard C++ libraries were used in addition to communication libraries provided by the Yasakawa Corporation. The current configuration works with Microsoft Windows NT and an Ethernet environment. This article describes the hardware and software design aspects of this machine.


A pape r en t i t l ed "Des ign of an h n p r o v e d T r a n s m i s s i o n / D a t a Processing Code" by R. W. Bemer, H. J. S m i t h and F. A. Wil l iams, Jr. a p p e a r e d in Communications of the ACM, Volume 4, N u m b e r 5, M a y 1961. This paper , a long wi th the E d i t o r ' s Note , was discussed b y the A S A X3-2 C o m m i t t e e a t t he regula r mee t ing of June 28 and 29. I t was the decision of the ASA X3-2 C o m m i t t e e t h a t the following r emarks be d i rec ted to you r a t t en t ion .


This work reports the design of a live‐cell monitoring platform based on a macroporous scaffold of a conducting polymer, poly(3,4‐ethylene dioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate). The conducting polymer scaffolds support 3D cell cultures due to their biocompatibility and tissue‐like elasticity, which can be manipulated by inclusion of biopolymers such as collagen. Integration of a media perfusion tube inside the scaffold enables homogenous cell spreading and fluid transport throughout the scaffold, ensuring long term cell viability. This also allows for co‐culture of multiple cell types inside the scaffold. The inclusion of cells within the porous architecture affects the impedance of the electrically conducting polymer network and, thus, is utilized as an in situ tool to monitor cell growth. Therefore, while being an integral part of the 3D tissue, the conducting polymer is an active component, enhancing the tissue function, and forming the basis for a bioelectronic device with integrated sensing capability.


Anthropogenic contamination of water resources is one of the most pressing concerns facing our world today. As contaminants trend towards organic, endocrine-disrupting chemicals, generated by agricultural and industrial waste, the need for ever increasing maximum limits on pollutants has surfaced. These new contaminants can pose threats to human health at nearly molecular levels, and nanoparticles, with their diminutive scale, offer a solution to modern water pollution. Photocatalysis and subsequent photodegradation of contaminants using titanium dioxide nanoparticles has been previously investigated, including remediation of atrazine, the most common contaminant in United States drinking water. However, results have been varied and studies have been largely inconclusive, which is likely due to a lack of morphological consistency in titanium dioxide nanoparticles, as well as the restriction of previous studies to anatase-phase titanium dioxide nanoparticles. We propose to synthesize monodisperse brookite-phase titanium dioxide nanoparticles and use them to photodegrade atrazine within a standard photoreactor device. Synthesized particles will be characterized using scanning electron microscopy and X-ray powder diffraction. Their performance will be compared to standard anatase-phase titanium dioxide nanoparticles, and results will be analyzed with UV-visible absorption spectroscopy.


This research provides an empirical test of the "Twitter effect," which postulates that microblogging word of mouth (MWOM) shared through Twitter and similar services affects early product adoption behaviors by immediately disseminating consumers' post-purchase quality evaluations. This is a potentially crucial factor for the success of experiential media products and other products whose distribution strategy relies on a hyped release. Studying the four million MWOM messages sent via Twitter concerning 105 movies on their respective opening weekends, the authors find support for the Twitter effect and report evidence of a negativity bias. In a follow-up incident study of 600 Twitter users who decided not to see a movie based on negative MWOM, the authors shed additional light on the Twitter effect by investigating how consumers use MWOM information in their decision-making processes and describing MWOM's defining characteristics. They use these insights to position MWOM in the word-of-mouth landscape, to identify future word-of-mouth research opportunities based on this conceptual positioning, and to develop managerial implications.


Microstructure and texture evolution of pure copper (99.95%) after Equal-Channel Angular Pressing (ECAP) and subsequent heat treatment were investigated. Initially the material was subjected up to twelve passes with a 90° die angle using route Bc. This resulted in an equivalent strain of 13.8. After deformation the samples were annealed at different temperatures. The deformed and annealed states were characterized by using the crystallographic texture analysis, EBSD measurements and microhardness tests.