PurposeThis paper aims to explore the use of a design process of inquiry that incorporates both deep customer insight (DCI) and traditional market research (TMR) in an ill-defined, complex current market opportunity to generate new business opportunities for firm-based innovation.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reports on an empirical research case study conducted within a multi-national insurance agency looking at the shift in mobility in Australia. Data were collected across seven distinct research phases, all of which used TMR and DCI techniques for joint comparison.FindingsThe findings revealed that TMR and DCI methodologies developed both contradictory and complementary research outcomes. These outcomes saw rise to newly generated novel business model concepts for market entry opportunity from the case study firm.Research limitations/implicationsThe theoretical outcome of this study is the design thinking DCI framework providing guidance on appropriate implementation of research methods to respond to complex market opportunity.Practical implicationsDCI methods used in conjunction with TMR can provide early stage market opportunity assessment for firms seeking to innovate from a customer perspective.Originality/valueThis is the first paper to apply a design approach, combining TMR and DCI methods to a complex market opportunity rather than a tangible problem. In addition, it also contributes to the emerging field of DCI methodologies by providing a practical examination of their use in the field.


Recent years have witnessed widespread media attention and policy debate regarding the causes and consequences of population flight from California. While some analysts' reports link the reversal in California migration flows to cyclical swings in the state economy, other commentaries focus on alleged deterioration in California amenities and quality of life. This paper employs a logistic migration model to evaluate the role of economic and other location-specific effects in the determination of California domestic migration flows. The model is estimated using data for each of the 50 U.S. states for the 1981-1992 period. Various simulations of the model for the California case are then undertaken to indicate the effect of evolution in economic conditions and other location-specific effects on California net migration. A baseline simulation predicated on a reversion in the state's unemployment rate, wage, and house price differentials to average levels observed in the 1981-1992 period suggests a substantial slowing in California out-migration. Further, deterioration in California location-specific fixed effects, as estimated from the otherwise unexplained portion of the acceleration of out-migration in the more recent 1989-1992 period, serves to dampen the simulated improvement in California net migration only modestly. Overall, our research findings suggest that a large part of the unprecedented and sizable domestic out-migration from California is temporary, to be largely reversed in the context of a rebound in the California economy.


National innovation systems and policies are confronted by many interrelated factors, including large socio-economic structural problems, globalisation, pressure to provide public research funding and changes in research communities driven by the Mode 2 paradigm. These changes challenge sectoral public research organisations (PROs). The role of universities and other policy organisations in innovation policy has been studied at length but there has been little investigation of PROs, despite their significance in developed and developing economies. This article fills this gap by exploring PROs in Finland, an open, industrialised and export-dependent economy. It draws several conclusions about the current state and future prospects of PROs in Finland. PROs are in transition in terms of their organisational, managerial and funding structures and their role in the internationalising national innovation system. Their rationale, legitimacy and strategies are also changing due to national innovation driven missions and internationalisation strategies. All PROs in Finland now engage in international cooperation. However, despite increasing funding from international sources and the globalisation of many aspects, PROs are still national organisations subject to national policies and governed by national bodies. Finnish PROs need to redefine their strategies at the international and European levels without forgetting their national role.


Methods are described that allow efficient expression in Escherichia coli of cloned eukaryotic genes. The methods require that the coding sequence of the gene in question be available in a form uninterrupted by intervening sequences (for example, as a complementary DNA clone). The gene products are synthesized unfused to other amino acid sequences. The genetic manipulations are simple, and require the plasmids described and commercially available enzymes.


Teaching in university has been widely debated in the past few years. However, this issue should not be limited solely to psychological and pedagogical matters. This paper examines university teaching in terms of its relational and human dimension which, as we would expect, also has an important impact on learning and student development. The communitarian critique of the principles of liberalism stresses the importance of this dimension of the teaching task and raises questions that need to be addressed in order to ensure that a university continues to be a unique life experience and an important social institution.


Neonatal septicemia constitutes a significant cause of neonatal mortality & morbidity in developing countries. It becomes essential to diagnose it as early as possible to reduce the mortality and treat with appropriate antibiotics. CRP is a sensitive & good inflammatory marker. Definite diagnosis of septicemia depends on positive blood culture, which takes around 48-72 hrs. Result of CRP test is available within an hour in tertiary care centers and remote areas, where there is no availability of well equipped laboratory setup for blood culture. 315 Neonates with suspected sepsis were included. Under aseptic precautions, Blood samples were collected in blood culture bottle & in Plain Vaccute. The CRP test was done by rapid slide latex agglutination method using the diagnostic kit (Tulip Diagnostics Ltd). Repeated Subcultures were performed. Identification of Organisms and Antibiotic sensitivity testing were done. Out of 315 cases, 180 (57%) had positive CRP and 135(43%) cases had positive blood culture. The Most common organism isolated were Gram negative organisms (65% ) like Klebsiella 56(41%) followed by Pseudomonas 19(14%), E. coli 11(8%), and Gram positive organisms (35%) like CONS 39(29%), Staphylococcus aureus 08(6%) . Estimation of CRP is easy to perform, rapid. It can use as inflammatory marker in early diagnosis of neonatal septicemia which will help to prevent severe and life threatening complications. K e y w o r d s


The main target of the present review is to draw attention to the current perspectives, advances, evidences, challenges, and future development of medicinal mushroom science in the 21 st century. Medicinal mushrooms and fungi are thought to possess approximately 130 medicinal functions, including antitumor, immunomodulating, antioxidant, radical scavenging, cardiovascular, anti-hypercholesterolemic, antiviral, antibacterial, anti-parasitic, antifungal, detoxification, hepatoprotective, and antidiabetic effects. Many, if not all, higher Basidiomycetes mushrooms contain biologically active compounds in fruit bodies, cultured mycelium, and cultured broth. Special attention is paid to mushroom polysaccharides. The data on mushroom polysaccharides and different secondary metabolites are summarized for approximately 700 species of higher hetero- and homobasidiomycetes. Numerous bioactive polysaccharides or polysaccharide-protein complexes from the medicinal mushrooms described appear to enhance innate and cell-mediated immune responses, and exhibit antitumor activities in animals and humans. Whilst the mechanism of their antitumor actions is still not completely understood, stimulation and modulation of key host immune responses by these mushroom compounds appear central. Polysaccharides and low-molecular-weight secondary metabolites are particularly important due to their antitumor and immunostimulating properties. Several of the mushroom compounds have been subjected to Phase I, II, and III clinical trials, and are used extensively and successfully in Asia to treat various cancers and other diseases. Special attention is given to many important unsolved problems in the study of medicinal mushrooms.


Parallel metaheuristics can enhance and speed up the resolution of hard-to-solve optimization problems by taking advantage of the available processing power. in this study, we present a parallel swarm intelligent method, pPSO, that uses the master-slave paradigm to evaluate all the particles simultaneously over several processing elements. We have applied pPSO to tackle the AODV routing optimization in VANETs, a problem that requires large computation times to evaluate the fitness function. in turn, we apply parallelism for the comprehensive validation of solutions in the simulation analysis. the AODV configuration optimized by pPSO shows the best trade-off among several QoS metrics when compared against state of the art configurations. Our pPSO achieved an average computational efficiency of 86%.


In this study, a two-dimensional numerical method based on the volume of fluid method is used to solve for water sloshing. The 2D equations of fluid motion are derived in a moving coordinate system. For modeling impact pressure induced by large amplitude sloshing, an emphasis is given to the numerical treatment of the free surface, which is sensitive to the simulation. Liquid sloshing inside a rectangular tank is simulated. The time histories of the free surface shape and the dynamic pressure inside the tank are obtained. The results are compared with an experimental data. These comparisons show that this method can be used to simulate the sloshing induced impact loads. Then series of violent sloshing phenomenon is given and compared.


From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Bared to You For Evangeline Hollis, a scorching one-night stand has led to a divine punishment--the Mark of Cain. Now reunited, Eve and Cain are working on transitioning their insatiable desire into a tentative new relationship even as she struggles to become a full-fledged Mark--one of thousands of sinners forced to hunt demons as penance. When her training class goes on a field trip to an abandoned military base, things take a dark turn: There's a demon hidden among them, killing off Eve's classmates one by one. To make a bad situation more dangerous, Eve's body is still adapting to the Mark and the new abilities and challenges that came with it--such as uncontrollable bloodlust...which seems to be inciting another kind of lust altogether. With Cain out on assignment, Eve's simmering attraction to his equally sexy brother Abel grows--and Abel is more than willing to take the heat...Read more Read less


Background Understanding older people's health-seeking behavior (HSB) is crucial for uncovering their health needs and priorities and developing appropriate policies to address them and avert their disease progression. Technologies play an active role in our daily lives and have been incorporated into health activities to support the older population and facilitate their HSB. However, previous studies of HSB have mainly focused on behaviors during illness, and there are limited studies on how technologies have been used in older people's health-seeking activities. Objective This study aimed to investigate HSB and the associated technology use among the older population, ultimately proposing implications for practice to address their unmet health needs. Methods This paper presents partial data from a large qualitative study, which has been approved by the institutional review board and used a phenomenological approach. Semistructured interviews were conducted between April 2022 and July 2022, either via Zoom (Zoom Video Communications Inc) or face-to-face sessions. Inclusion criteria were being aged ≥50 years, long-term residence in Singapore, and being able to speak English or Mandarin. The interviews were manually transcribed verbatim, and thematic analysis was performed, with the individual as the unit of analysis to understand the patterns of behaviors. Results In total, 15 interviews were conducted to reach thematic saturation. We identified 5 main consequences of HSB, which were aligned with the original HSB model. Regarding technology use in health seeking, 4 themes were extracted: the most widely used digital technologies are the mobile health apps and wearable devices with the associated wellness programs launched by the government and local companies, and they have the potential to enhance health communication, promote health maintenance, and increase access to health services; information communication technologies and social media, though not primarily designed for health purposes, play a substantial role in easing the process of seeking health information and managing symptoms. Although the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in some alterations to older adults' well-being, it has catalyzed the adoption of telehealth as a complement to access health care services, and older adults have different considerations when selecting technologies to facilitate their health seeking and fulfill their health needs. Moreover, 4 archetypes were proposed based on our findings and the insights gained from our participants' observations in their social networks. These findings led to several implications for practice regarding health communication and promotion, health education, technology design and improvement, telemonitoring service implementation, and solutions to address the needs of each proposed archetype. Conclusions Unlike the commonly held belief that older adults resist technologies and lack technological proficiency, our findings showed that technologies could play a promising role in facilitating older adults' health seeking. Our findings have implications for the design and implementation of health services and policies.


Imprime PGG (Imprime), in combination with both tumor-targeting and anti-angiogenic antibodies, has shown promising efficacy in multiple phase 2 clinical trials. In numerous pre-clinical in vivo tumor models, Imprime also enhances the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitor antibodies in addition to tumor-targeting and anti-angiogenic antibodies. Imprime is a yeast-derived, soluble β-1,3/1,6 glucan that acts as a Pathogen Associated Molecular Pattern (PAMP) to trigger activation of innate immune effector cells (macrophages, monocytes, neutrophils, dendritic cells (DC)), which orchestrate a coordinated anti-cancer immune response with cells of the adaptive immune system. Ex vivo studies with human whole blood have shown that Imprime forms an immune complex with endogenous anti-beta glucan antibodies (ABA) to trigger a constellation of innate immune functions. These include complement activation via the classical complement pathway, select chemokine production, phenotypic activation and enhanced tumor cell killing by neutrophils and macrophages. Imprime also activates antigen-presenting cells (e.g. macrophages, DC), enabling T cell expansion and activation. In vivo, intravenous (IV) injection of Imprime in C57BL/6 mice increases select chemokine expression, triggers neutrophil and monocyte mobilization into circulation and secondary lymphoid organs, and also enhances DC maturation and antigen-specific T-cell priming. In this study, we show that the immunopharmacodynamic (IPD) responses elicited by IV administration of Imprime in healthy human subjects are consistent with the innate immune responses observed in ex vivo human and in vivo mouse studies. Healthy human volunteers (18-65 yr) were administered single (Cohort 1) or multiple (once weekly for 3 wks-Cohort 2) doses of Imprime PGG (4 mg/kg) by IV infusion over 2-3 hrs. Physical examination with vital signs, adverse event solicitation and timed blood sampling for IPD changes were performed. IPD endpoints included complement protein levels, circulating blood cell lineage counts, ABA concentrations, circulating immune complex (CIC) levels, cytokine and chemokine concentrations, as well as binding and activation of blood leukocytes. Cohort 1 and 2 results show that the complement activation proteins C5a and SC5b-9 were significantly increased in the plasma at the end of infusion (EOI) of Imprime. The formation of Imprime:ABA complexes was evident in a substantial drop of free ABA and a concomitant increase in CIC in the serum also at the EOI. IL-8 and MCP-1 were consistently detected between EOI and 1 hr post infusion. Additional chemokines, including MIP-1α, MIP-1β, and IP-10 were also detected in some of the subjects. A significant increase in the neutrophil and monocyte counts was seen in the blood after infusion. Cellular analyses showed Imprime binding to neutrophils, monocytes, and subsets of DC (classical and inflammatory) 15-30 mins after the start of infusion. Additionally, 24 hrs after completion of Imprime administration, a population of non-classical monocytes (CD14/CD16 positive), which are known to have higher antigen presentation capability and thus express higher levels of the activation markers CD86, PD-L1, and HLA-DR, was observed. Importantly, these IPD responses were evident only in subjects with higher ABA levels. Collectively, these data provide the first evidence that, when dosed IV in healthy human subjects, Imprime elicits a constellation of innate immune activating events that are consistent with efficacy in preclinical tumor models. Importantly, these human data also provide the first evidence linking pre-treatment ABA levels and Imprime induced IPD changes, suggesting the plausibility of using pre-treatment ABA levels in the selection of patients most likely to benefit from Imprime-based therapy. Citation Format: Nadine C. Ottoson, Richard D. Huhn, Jamie Lowe, Ben Harrison, Jose Iglesias, Blaine Rathmann, Takashi Kangas, Lindsay R. Wurst, Xiaohong Qiu, Anissa Chan, Adria Bykowski Jonas, Kathryn Fraser, Richard M. Walsh, Katie Ertelt, Steven M. Leonardo, Ross Fulton, Keith Gorden, Mark A. Matson, Mark Uhlik, Jeremy Graff, Nandita Bose. Imprime PGG, an intravenously administered beta glucan PAMP activates the innate immune system: A phase I clinical study to evaluate immunopharmacodynamic responses [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Second CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference: Translating Science into Survival; 2016 Sept 25-28; New York, NY. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Immunol Res 2016;4(11 Suppl):Abstract nr B008.


This special issue results from a call for papers to address the connection between resilience and sustainability, and stems from the fact that the ecological concept of resilience has been exercising an increasing influence on the economics of development. Resilience is interpreted in two different ways by ecologists: one capturing the speed of return to equilibrium following perturbation (Pimm, 1984), the other capturing the size of a disturbance needed to dislodge a system from its stability domain (Holling, 1973). The latter may be interpreted as the conditional probability that a system in one stability domain will flip into another stability domain given its current state and the disturbance regime (Perrings, 1998). The relevance of this concept for the problem of sustainable economic development has been recognized for at least fifteen years (Common and Perrings, 1992). Indeed, Levin et al. (1998) claimed that resilience is the preferred way to think about sustainability in social as well as natural systems, and a research network – the Resilience Alliance – has subsequently developed around the idea.


After returning home to his despoiled property, Henry Rutgers cautiously rebuilt the family fortune during the economic malaise of the 1780s. He was initially swept into office on the wave of patriotic, anti-loyalist sentiment, but later as an Antifederalist and Jeffersonian Republican he both won and lost elections to the Federalists. Capitalizing on the shrewd economic decisions of his forbears and the burgeoning population of the metropolis, by the 1790s Rutgers was a successful developer, landlord, and entrepreneur, which laid the foundation for his future philanthropic endeavors. He continued to be involved in the affairs of his community, his city, and his state.


Currently, information identifying the importance of food and water in the trophic transfer of metals for most aquatic organisms is limited, yet such information is essential for modeling metal movement within food webs. Hyalella azteca is a suitable organism to study the trophic transfer of metals since they represent a major, but potentially vulnerable component of the food web of many lakes. Since studies involving the trophic transfer are limited, the objective of this research was to determine the relative importance of food and water sources of Pb and Cd to these animals.

Hyalella azteca browses on the film of microscopic plants, animals and organic debris covering leaves, stems and other substrates. Hyalella azteca are epibenthic freshwater organisms that prefer foods high in protein. A major challenge of this study involved determining a substrate in which algae would grow and stay attached so Hyalella azteca could graze. Preliminary studies found that the diatom species, Navicula pelliculosa grew and adhered well to Teflon ® surfaces and that Hyalella azteca grazed the diatoms from the surface of Teflon ® . Thus, Navicula pelliculosa was grown in the presence of Pb and Cd concentrations and then fed to the organisms. No significant difference was found between organisms exposed to Pb and Cd from water and from water and food, indicating that Pb and Cd bioaccumulation from food is negligible when the dissolved inorganic fractions are buffered with ethylenediamine tetra-acetic acid (EDTA).

The average log 10 bioconcentration factor (BCF) for Cd was calculated to be 5.25 from water exposure and 5.49 from water and food

exposure. The log 10 Hyalella BCF for Pb was calculated as 4.62 from water exposure

and 4.59 from water and food exposure. From these results, it can be concluded

that a food source containing Pb and Cd concentrations of 15 nM Pb and 0.37

nM Cd, had no noticeable effect on metal burdens to Hyalella azteca. Metal

uptake by Hyalella azteca at the levels studied was found to be primarily from

the dissolved phase.


The immobilization of a whole microbial cell is an important process used in nanotechnology of biosensors and other related fields, especially the development of bio-hybrid materials based on live organisms and inorganic compounds. Here, we described an essay to develop a bio-hybrid material based on Salmonella Typhimurium cells and layered double hydroxides (LDH). The synthetic clays have a good capacity to be a host matrix for immobilization of live entity like bacteria. The incorporation of LDH in the nutritive broth shows the capacity of bacteria to grow under the inorganic conditions. The immobilization of bacteria onto the LDH Layer deposited on gold wafers was successfully done and the verification of the final material consistence was given by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis that shows the possibility of various covalent links that can be established between the polar functional group of the cell and the interlayer level in the LDH. The roughness of the surface was given by scanning electron microscope (SEM) imaging and shows the homogeneity of cell distribution on the LDH layer.

 Key words: Layer double hydroxide, Salmonella Typhimurium, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy-attenuated total reflectance (FTIR-ATR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX); scanning electron microscope (SEM)


Marjolin's ulcers, or malignancy originating from burn scars, have been recorded in the literature since the first century AD (Ozek et al. Marjolin's ulcers arising in burn scars. J Burn Care Rehabil 2001;22:384-9). The majority of cases of Marjolin's ulcers occur in primary burn scar sites with few reported cases following secondary graft placement. We report a case of Marjolin's ulcer that developed in a 57-year-old man, 46 years after initial skin graft placement following a left lower extremity burn. The patient presented to us following diagnosis of squamous cell carcinoma of the verucous type lesion. Wide surgical excision was performed and a split thickness skin graft was applied. The postoperative course was uneventful and no recurrences have occurred. To our knowledge, this is the largest reported Marjolin's case recorded in the literature.


Granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF)-transduced autologous tumor cells form the basis of many immunotherapeutic strategies. We tested whether combining this approach with T-helper 1 (Th-1)-like immunostimulatory CpG oligodeoxynucleotides (CpG ODNs) would improve therapeutic efficacy in an established model of murine neuroblastoma. The weakly immunogenic Neuro-2a cell line was used in syngeneic A/J mice. CpG 1826 was tested for its antitumor effect alone and as an adjuvant to Neuro-2a cells retrovirally transduced to express murine GM-CSF (GM/Neuro-2a). Three days after wild-type (WT) tumor cell inoculation, mice in different groups were s.c. vaccinated in the opposite leg with combinations of WT neuro2a, irradiated (15 Gy) WT or GM/Neuro-2a transfectants with or without CpG 1826 (200 micro g). To test for the induction of memory responses, mice that rejected their tumor were rechallenged with WT Neuro-2a (1 x 10(6)) 7 weeks after vaccination. All of the mice in the control (unvaccinated) group died within 3 weeks after Neuro-2a inoculation. Most of the vaccinated groups had only minimal-to-modest antitumor responses, and the mice succumbed to tumor. Tumor growth was remarkably inhibited in the group of mice that received irradiated GM/Neuro-2a plus CpG and four (50%) of eight mice in this group survived tumor free. Tumor-free mice were resistant to further WT tumor cell challenge, indicating a memory response. Mechanistic studies showed that CpG alone induced a favorable Th-1-like cytokine immune response and vaccine-induced tumor cell killing was dependent on both CD4 and CD8 T cells that killed tumor cell targets by apoptosis. These results demonstrate that CpG ODNs enhanced the antitumor effect of irradiated GM-CSF secreting Neuro-2a cells. This vaccine strategy elicits a potent tumor antigen-specific immune response against established murine neuroblastoma and generates systemic neuroblastoma-specific immunity.


The contribution of diet to the development of several chronic diseases, such as vascular disease, diabetes or lipid abnormalities has been established. Therefore, clinical trials dealing with these diseases need to adjust for individual dietary habits in order to account for potential confounding. Common practice in the majority of studies that collect dietary information is to record individual habits using specific questionnaires (e.g. Food Frequency questionnaires, FFQ). Nevertheless, a major challenge in nutrition assessment is the correct measurement of dietary exposure. This can be expressed as the reliability and validity of the retrieved information. These issues refer to how close the food records and the energy intake estimated by a tool represent actual food intake. To establish accuracy of a tool is of major importance in order to avoid inconsistent estimates of dietary intake that can distort any potential relation between diet, pharmacological treatment and disease. The aim of this review is to critically present commonly used statistical methods in reliability and validity studies.


This article explores two modes of innocence at work in the making of the Humboldt Forum, Germany's biggest cultural project. It examines the legacy of the historical castle's "cabinet of curiosities" and the elevation of the Humboldt brothers, especially Alexander von Humboldt, to patron saints. Through these cases, the article identifies an exculpatory mode of innocence focused on the past and an anticipatory mode focused on the future. These modes, it argues, exemplify a tension between the imagination of history as a timeless realm that eschews redemption and as fungible materials that can be recombined to start anew and redeem the past.


Over the past half century, consumers in Australia have increasingly been confronted with a plethora of health food products. This paper focuses on health food that encourages consumption through the promise of health benefits. In this context, media representation of such food serves as a lens to explore the spread of consumer culture in Australia. Using a historical perspective, this paper asserts that in promoting such foods, food "experts" form an advisory nexus in an increasing context of "gastro‐anomy" that Fischler (1980) speaks of. Fifty years of advertising, editorial content and articles are examined from the Australian Women's Weekly. Warde's (1997) antinomies of tastes are used as a starting point to show how the anxiety and risks associated with food consumption are built up and allayed.


Interfaces between heterogeneous materials exist in many applications and affect properties such as mechanical integrity during thermal cycling, heat transport and electrical transport due to the inherent disparate properties such as coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), density and bonding strength. Multifunctional interfaces are developed to bridge the desired properties and functionality. These interfaces are comprised of an alloy of zirconium and copper which are common materials compatible with electronics industry processes. A magnetron sputtering deposition system with dual deposition is utilized to perform the functional deposition. The functionally varied layer is placed at the interface between a high coefficient of thermal expansion material and a low CTE material and bridges the material property differences. Materials selection is driven by comparing CTE differences, elastic moduli and geometric averaging. Thermal cycling is performed to investigate mechanical integrity for extreme cycle ranges of order -55 °C to 300 °C. Additionally thin buffer zones using atomic layer deposition (ALD) are investigated for adhesion improvement. Orthogonal to the mechanical properties, thermal and electronic properties need to be maintained. Both thermal and electrical transport are investigated for the effect of the alloy gradient on them. Theoretical modelling is utilized to find the proper alloy to simultaneously provide the best mechanical, thermal and electrical properties.


The Survey Science Centre of the XMM-Newton satellite released the first incremental version of the 2XMM catalogue in August 2008. Containing more than 220 000 X-ray sources, the 2XMMi was at that time the largest catalogue of X-ray sources ever published and thus constitutes an unprecedented resource for studying the high-energy properties of various classes of X-ray emitters such as AGN and stars. Thanks to the high throughput of the EPIC cameras on board XMM-Newton accurate positions, fluxes, and hardness ratios are available for a substantial fraction of the X-ray detections. The advent of the 7th release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey offers the opportunity to cross-match two major surveys and extend the spectral energy distribution of many 2XMMi sources towards the optical bands. This implies building extensive homogeneous samples with a statistically controlled rate of spurious matches and completeness. We here present a cross-matching algorithm based on the classical likelihood ratio estimator. The method developed has the advantage of providing true probabilities of identifications without resorting to heavy Monte-Carlo simulations. Over 30,000 2XMMi sources have SDSS counterparts with individual probabilities of identification higher than 90%. At this threshold, the sample has only 2% spurious matches and contains 77% of all expected SDSS identifications. Using spectroscopic identifications from the SDSS DR7 catalogue supplemented by extraction from other catalogues, we build an identified sample from which the way the various classes of X-ray emitters gather in the multi dimensional parameter space can be analysed and later used to design a source classification scheme. We illustrate the interest of this clean source sample by investigating two scientific use cases. In the first example we show how these multi-wavelength data can be used to search for new QSO2s. Although no specific range of observed properties allows us to efficiently identify Compton Thick QSO2s, we show that the prospects are much better for Compton Thin AGN2 and discuss several possible multi-parameter selection strategies. In a second example, we confirm the hardening of the mean X-ray spectrum with increasing X-ray luminosity on a sample of over 500 X-ray active stars and reveal that on average X-ray active M stars display bluer g − r colour indexes than less active ones. Although this catalogue of 2XMM-SDSS sources cannot be used directly for statistical studies, it nevertheless represents an excellent starting point to select well defined samples of X-ray-emitting objects.


The effects of nonnutritive sucking (NNS) by means of a pacifier during gavage feeding were studied in 30 premature infants whose birth weight was less than 1,500 g. The addition of NNS accelerated the maturation of the sucking reflex, facilitating a more rapid transition from gavage to oral feedings. Additionally, NNS decreased intestinal transit time and caused a more rapid weight gain despite comparable caloric intake resulting in a shortened hospital stay. Although the physiologic mechanisms resulting from this form of oral stimulation remain to be investigated, our data suggest that NNS may be an important factor to consider in the feeding of premature infants.


Problem statement: The aim of automatic text summarization systems is to select the most relevant information from an abundance of text sources. A daily rapid growth of data on the internet makes the achieve events of such aim a big challenge. Approach: In this study, we incorporated fuzzy logic with swarm intelligence; so that risks, uncertainty, ambiguity and imprecise values of choosing the features weights (scores) could be flexibly tolerated. The weights obtained from the swarm experiment were used to adjust the text features scores and then the features scores were used as inputs for the fuzzy inference system to produce the final sentence score. The sentences were ranked in descending order based on their scores and then the top n sentences were selected as final summary. Results: The experiments showed that the incorporation of fuzzy logic with swarm intelligence could play an important role in the selection process of the most important sentences to be included in the final summary. Also the results showed that the proposed method got a good performance outperforming the swarm model and the benchmark methods. Conclusion: Incorporating more than one technique for dealing with the sentence scoring proved to be an effective mechanism. The PSO was employed for producing the text features weights. The purpose of this process was to emphasize on dealing with the text features fairly based on their importance and to differentiate between more and less important features. The fuzzy inference system was employed to determine the final sentence score, on which the decision was made to include the sentence in the summary or not.


This paper presents a theoretical framework for the analysis of business models that involve public actors, and city governments in particular, in the value network. It starts from an established business model framework and expands it to include an additional set of parameters required to successfully perform a qualitative analysis of the business models of new (digital) services offered by cities. It then applies this framework to four divergent cases from the mobile services sector in which city governments are involved as part of their efforts in becoming "smarter cities".


We present two methods for estimation of crop stem width on small mobile robots. Stem width is an important phenotype needed by breeders and plant-biologists to measure plant growth, however, its manual measurement is cumbersome, in-accurate, and inefficient. The presented methods use a common image processing core that is designed to extract the foreground in the presence of significant leaf and stem clutter, view of other rows, and varying lighting, from a side-facing USB camera mounted on a small mobile robot. Using the extracted foreground, one approach uses estimates of robot velocity from wheel encoders and dense optical flow to estimate depth, while the other employs filtering of the LIDAR 2-D point cloud to estimate the depth. Both methods have been exhaustively validated against available hand-measurements on biomass sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) in real experimental fields. Experiments indicate that both methods are also applicable to other crops with cylindrical stems without significant modifications. The width estimation match on sorghum is 92.5% (using vision) and 98.2% (using vision and LIDAR) when compared against manual measurements by trained agronomists. Thus, our results clearly establish the feasibility of using small robots for stem-width estimation in realistic field settings. Furthermore, the techniques presented here can be utilized for automating other phenotypic measurements.


Statistical methods and models assuming the existence of not directly observable or "latent" variables are extensively used in every modern research area. This Special Issue, inspired by the Workshop " Statistics with Unobservable Variables " (SUNOVA) held at the University of Brescia as part of the activities of the Research Center " Data Methods and Systems " on May 15, 2012, highlights the opportunities offered by some of the most advanced statistical approaches that make use of these types of variables. The short papers submitted by the authors adopt different approaches, models and algorithms to "discover" latent variables (Structural Equation and Factor models, Rasch and Item Response models, Topic models, Non-symmetric CA, Non-linear PCA, Partial Least Squares-PM), with applications in various research fields (healthcare, psychometrics, education, finance, management and bibliometrics). It was a pleasure for us to have the opportunity to read these interesting studies, and we wish to express our thanks to all the authors and reviewers that have made possible this special issue dedicated to the Workshop SUNOVA 2012.


Background: Eversense CGM is the first implantable long-term continuous glucose monitoring system. Prior studies evaluated the safety of the system using a study design of one insertion and removal cycle. The purpose of this prospective PMCF registry was to assess the long-term safety of the Eversense CGM System after repeated insertions. Methods: Eversense users from 15 European countries were followed prospectively until the first 100 participants completed their 4 th insertion cycle. Visits were made every 90 to 180 days (dependent on sensor configuration) to replace sensors once sensor end life was reached. At each visit, Adverse Events (AEs) that occurred during the visit or during use since the previous visit were recorded. The primary endpoint was the rate of serious adverse events (SAEs) that were device-related, procedure-related, or drug (dexamethasone acetate) related through the sensor insertion/removal cycles. Results: 3066 participants were enrolled in the study with 43% on 2 or more sensor cycles. There were no device- or procedure-related SAEs reported. A total of 130 potentially-related AEs were reported, of which 106 were adjudicated as related or possibly/probably related to the device or insertion/removal procedure. Conclusion: Repeat insertions of the Eversense CGM confirmed the promising safety profile of prior studies and show it to be safe for long-term continuous use. Disclosure G. Carlson: Consultant; Self; Abbott Laboratories, Edwards Lifesciences Corporation, Senseonics, St. Jude Medical. K.S. Tweden: Employee; Self; Senseonics. C. Mdingi: Employee; Self; Senseonics. H. Haridas: Employee; Self; Senseonics.


The Second Life (SL) multi-user virtual environment offers researcher opportunities to experiment with its rich communication, virtual collaboration, and 3-D content creation integrated tools. The SL synthetic world has already revealed great potential for heritage, education and learning but much of the existing applications made have focused on engagement with digital native audiences. The contribution of this paper identifies the importance of developing and designing tailored virtual places which older members of society can utilize easily and safely within this context, with a focused application of addressing social isolation, enabling well being and lifelong learning. In this paper we also discuss our experiences of introducing SL to an elderly community and imparting to them the skills required to interact within the 3D environment and the resources that we developed to support their induction and training. This paper explores the impact of this approach and signposts next steps in experimenting with the use of SL as a domesticated digital technology tool that offers potential to support Ageing Well in our Information Society. We believe that we are the first researchers to conduct a small scaled pilot study of this kind with two elder members of society both aged over 75.


The recent establishment of academic colleges in Israel not only has affected the make‐up of Israeli higher education, it also has affected university libraries, particularly the interlibrary loan (ILL) departments. This article describes a study that characterised the ILL borrowing practices of Israeli college libraries in general and, in particular, those of libraries that send the majority of their requests to universities. It also identified the disciplines of college library ILL requests and determined that there is a connection to the disciplines prevalent in their own collections. In addition, it identified the Israeli university libraries that received increased requests between 1997 and 2001, assessed the effects on them and identified changes implemented in interlibrary loan departments in order to deal with the increased demand.


The induction of hsp-70 by gamma irradiation was studied in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells. Synthesis of hsp-70 was assessed by SDS-PAGE of radiolabeled proteins while levels of hsp-70 mRNA were estimated by Northern blot analysis of total RNA. SDS-PAGE analysis indicated that the synthesis of hsp-70 was enhanced in cells exposed to 400 or 1000 Gy. Northern blot analysis of RNA from cells exposed to 1000 Gy indicated a rapid increase in mRNA capable of hybridizing to an hsp-70 oligonucleotide probe. These experiments represent the first report demonstrating that ionizing radiation can increase hsp-70 mRNA.


Summary Most studies on the adaptive significance of plant traits compared species that differed in inherent growth rate or species of habitats at the extremes of environmental gradients. In the present paper, we compared the response of Viola elatior and V. pumila , two closely related and morphologically similar violets to the experimental variation of nitrogen availability. The species occur in adjacent habitat types, viz. alluvial forest fringes ( V. elatior ) and floodplain meadows ( V. pumila ), that differ in resource availability and disturbance across a relatively small gradient. We tested the hypotheses that, according to their typical habitat, V. elatior should show more traits of a stress tolerant competitive plant, while V. pumila should exhibit more ruderal traits. We carried out a two-year common garden experiment with two levels of fertiliser addition (N5, 5 g N m −2 yr −1 ; N20, 20 g N m −2 yr −1 ), and analysed a number of traits related to relative growth rate (RGR), allocation, and nutrient use. We further did an experiment with seeds from the experimental plants to study variation in germination rate. We found considerable ontogenetic drift in the species during two years of growth. In the first year, both species showed similar mass and growth rate but these were achieved through different trait combinations. In the second year, V. elatior had a higher RGR, produced more biomass per unit nutrient and developed more leaf area per unit plant mass than V. pumila , while the latter produced thinner leaves. V. pumila had a higher capacity for nutrient acquisition, but a large proportion of the captured nutrients were used for reproduction. Germination rate was higher in V. pumila than in V. elatior , independent of the nutrient status of the mother plant, while seeds of V. elatior from N20 plants had a significantly higher germination rate (67%) than seeds from N5 plants (35%). Our data suggested that many of the analysed trait differences seem to be consistent with the requirements of the different habitat types.


Defining Lawrence's "expository writings not as laboratory reports on experiments successfully concluded but as signposts to a road" traveled in his art, H. M. Daleski notes that these "theories were consistently modified by the artistic experience, which in turn led to further formulations." Indeed, these continually revised and modified formulations of theories about almost everything constituted what Lawrence called "thought adventures"; in themselves they were signs of a yearning toward wholeness-in-duality that that can account for this writer's special charisma. For Lawrence was not just a novelist, a poet, and a critic; he was also, in our current rather inadequate terminology, a public intellectual. To be "on the road" with D. H. Lawrence is to be engaged in an extraordinary thought adventure, accompanied by an unfailingly engaged and engaging commentator whose intellectual wholeness-in-duality was of a sort we rarely encounter on the contemporary literary scene. In developing this point, the article also argues that Lawrence's great intellectual and creative adventure, though acutely modern, was also astutely anti-modernist. Although his early work was championed by such modernist luminaries as Ezra Pound and Ford Maddox Ford, by the end of his career he had become virtually the polar opposite of the quintessential modernist T. S. Eliot. Not coincidentally, perhaps, by the end of his career this thought adventurer addressed his ideas not just to an exclusively high cultural audience of the "fit though few" but to the masses among whom he could be, as he put it, "in the thick of the scrimmage."


In recent years public and political debate suggested that individuals with children value the future more. We attempt to substantiate the debate, and we use a representative survey to investigate if the number of children (or simply having children) is indeed associated with a higher valuation of the future, which we proxy with an aspect of time preferences, patience. We find that, in general, there is no correlation between having children and patience, though for young women with below-median income there is some weak evidence in line with the conjecture. We also show some evidence that it is not having children that matters, but marital status. More precisely, single women are less patient than other, non-single women.


Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) are one of the emerging technologies in the automotive domain that has the potential to alleviate the issues of accidents, traffic congestion, and pollutant emissions, leading to a safe, efficient, and sustainable transportation system. Machine learning-based methods are widely used in CAVs for crucial tasks like perception, motion planning, and motion control, where machine learning models in CAVs are solely trained using the local vehicle data, and the performance is not certain when exposed to new environments or unseen conditions. Federated learning (FL) is an effective solution for CAVs that enables a collaborative model development with multiple vehicles in a distributed learning framework. FL enables CAVs to learn from a wide range of driving environments and improve their overall performance while ensuring the privacy and security of local vehicle data. In this paper, we review the progress accomplished by researchers in applying FL to CAVs. A broader view of the various data modalities and algorithms that have been implemented on CAVs is provided. Specific applications of FL are reviewed in detail, and an analysis of the challenges and future scope of research are presented.


The classical job-shop scheduling problems (JSP) become assembly job-shop scheduling problems (AJSP) if assembly constraints are attached to them. The entire solution space size and the feasible one of AJSP are analyzed and obtained by utilizing combinational mathematics. It is proved that the feasible solution space takes extremely small portion of the entire one. To minimize the makespan of AJSP, genetic algorithm searching in feasible solution space (FGA) is proposed and designed, and the search range of FGA is limited to feasible solution space. Finally, benchmarks tests and results are given which demonstrate the advantage and efficiency of FGA.


It is obvious that for high-rise building construction there should be added additional requirements not only for designing, but also for organization and technology for foundations and underground parts of the building. Only qualitative calculations and entire engineering of geotechnical solutions will let to make really safe construction. As a result of carried out analysis of literature, according to our view, due to appearance of new technologies and types of piles and also new requirements for increase of bearing capacity especially in high-rise building construction, aroused a necessity in application of new pile test methods which will allow setup of high capacity piles. Conducting of tests using hydraulic jacks and division of piles into segments is appropriate for high capacity piles when using standard test methods by vertical load is impossible technically or there is need to use huge anchor constructions, so using such methods is inappropriate economically and technically. The Osterberg cell is very simple mechanically, and made of a metal piston and cylinder that create an expandable chamber holding pressurized oil or water. The pressurized oil acts on the piston, and taking into account that the piston is usually not less 800 mm in diameter, the Osterberg cell can apply relatively large loads for low hydraulic pressures. Loads of more than 2700 t. can be reached with the largest cells. Characteristics of piles after tests with load cells are close to piles, which were not exposed testing, because residual stress in pile is less than the ones, which are left after applying full vertical load in standard tests.


Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain K (PAK) bears polar pili that promote infection by at least six bacteriophages. Moreover, a recently isolated mutant of strain K (PAK/2PfS) is many times more piliated than the wild-type strain and facilitates the preparation of large amounts of pure pili for biochemical studies. The present investigation was carried out to establish the structural relatedness of PAK and PAK/2PfS pili and to determine their biochemical composition. A purfication procedure is described for PAK and PAK/2PfS pili that yields about 8 mg of pure pili per 100 g (wet weight) of PAK/2PfS cells and 0.8 mg of pure pili per 100 g (wet weight) of PAK cells. PAK and PAK/2PfS pili were found to be free from phosphate, carbohydrate, and lipid and to contain a single polypeptide subunit of 17,800 daltons. Isopycnic centrifugation studies revealed that PAK and PAK(2PfS pili have the same buoyant density in sucrose (1.221) and CsC1 (1.295). Both types of pili banded at pH 3.9 when subjected to isoelectric focusing. Amino acid analyses showed that PAK and PAK/2PfS pili have identical amino acid compositions, whereas microimmunodiffusion studies revealed that the two types of pili are immunologically indistinguishable. It was concluded that PAK and PAK/2PfS pili are identical and that the mutation responsible for producing the multipiliated state in PAK/2PfS is probably located outside the structural gene for PAK pili.


We proposed a new method for reducing the grating lobe level even when the number of radiating elements in the imaging reflector antenna is small. The most significant feature of this method is that the distance between the array plane and the center of subreflector is controlled so as to reduce the generated grating lobes. Using this method the magnification factor M can exceed the usually used value in order to decrease the number of radiating elements. This method is extremely low-cost because no additional components are added, and it does not decrease the reliability. An onboard phased-array-fed imaging reflector antenna was designed for the future Japanese Ka-band broadband satellite communication system by using the proposed method, and its performance met the system requirements.


Abstract:  Authors have documented a "research‐implementation gap" in conservation. Research intended to inform conservation practice often does not, and practice often is not informed by the best science. We used the literature on policy learning (i.e., literature attributing policy change to learning) to structure a study of how practice is informed by science in collaborative conservation. We studied implementation by U.S. states of state wildlife action plans. On the basis of 60 interviews with government and nongovernmental organization representatives, we identified 144 implementation initiatives for State Wildlife Action Plans that were collaborative. We conducted case studies of 6 of these initiatives, which included interviews of key individuals and analysis of written documents. We coded interview transcripts and written documents to identify factors that influence availability and use of scientific information. We integrated these factors into a model of collaborative conservation. Although tangible factors such as funding and labor directly affected the availability of scientific information, practitioners' ability and willingness to use the information depended on less tangible factors such as the quality of interpersonal relationships and dialogue. Our work demonstrates empirically that relationships and dialogue led to: (1) the sharing of resources, such as funding and labor, that were needed to carry out research and produce information and (2) agreement among researchers and practitioners on conservation objectives, which was necessary for that new information to inform action. Our findings can be understood in the context of broader concepts articulated in the policy‐learning literature, which establishes that social learning (improving relationships and dialogue) provides the foundation for conceptual learning (setting objectives) and technical learning (determining how to achieve these objectives).


It is a basic, ancient and mysterious issue: why our space is three dimensional? This issue is related to philosophy, mathematics, physics and even religion, and thus aroused great research interests. The author makes an in-depth analysis of the problem, and finally comes to a conclusion: For any vector space with symmetry, orthogonality, homogeneity and completeness, the space dimension must be three on condition that: the energy obeys the law of conservation, the dynamics law is governed by the covariance principle, and thus the cross-product must can be defined in the space. Our space just meets and requires the above constraints, so its dimension is three.


Introduction The burden of disease attributed to drinking water from private wells is not well characterised. The Wells and Enteric disease Transmission trial is the first randomised controlled trial to estimate the burden of disease that can be attributed to the consumption of untreated private well water. To estimate the attributable incidence of gastrointestinal illness (GI) associated with private well water, we will test if the household treatment of well water by ultraviolet light (active UV device) versus sham (inactive UV device) decreases the incidence of GI in children under 5 years of age. Methods and analysis The trial will enrol (on a rolling basis) 908 families in Pennsylvania, USA, that rely on private wells and have a child 3 years old or younger. Participating families are randomised to either an active whole-house UV device or a sham device. During follow-up, families will respond to weekly text messages to report the presence of signs and symptoms of gastrointestinal or respiratory illness and will be directed to an illness questionnaire when signs/symptoms are present. These data will be used to compare the incidence of waterborne illness between the two study groups. A randomly selected subcohort submits untreated well water samples and biological specimens (stool and saliva) from the participating child in both the presence and absence of signs/symptoms. Samples are analysed for the presence of common waterborne pathogens (stool and water) or immunoconversion to these pathogens (saliva). Ethics Approval has been obtained from Temple University's Institutional Review Board (Protocol 25665). The results of the trial will be published in peer-reviewed journals. Trial registration number NCT04826991.


The conventional textbook is largely inadequate for digital signal processing (DSP) laboratory education due to inherent factors such as a small and fragmented market and rapid hardware obsolescence. Freely available open-content materials that enable and promote both local customization and further development by a community of educators offers a fresh approach to lab text development that can surmount these barriers. In this paper, we overview a joint effort organized by the Connexions Project to develop a large pool of DSP lab modules sufficient to serve as the complete, stand-alone text for several types of DSP lab courses.


Normative theories of argumentation tend to assume that logical and dialectical rules suffice to ensure the rationality of argumentative discourse. Yet, in everyday debates people use arguments that seem valid in light of such rules but nonetheless biased and tendentious. This article seeks to show that the rationality of argumentation can only be fully promoted if we take into account its ethical dimension. To substantiate this claim, I review some of the empirical evidence indicating that people's inferential reasoning is systematically affected by a variety of biases and heuristics. Insofar as these cognitive illusions are typically unintentional, it appears that arguers may be biased despite their well-intended efforts to follow the rules of critical argumentation. Nevertheless, I argue that people remain responsible for the rationality of their arguments, given that there are a number of measures that they can (and ought to) take to avoid such distortions. I highlight the importance of argumentational virtues and critical thinking to rational debates, and describe a set of indirect strategies of "argumentative self-control".


Due to a large number of thin capitalization practices used by the companies as a way to evade tax, the government through the Minister of Finance issued the Minister of Finance Regulation Number 169/PMK.010/2015 concerning the Determination of Company's Debt and Equity Ratio for Income Tax Calculation Purpose. The regulations state that the maximum debt to equity ratio is four to one. is applicable for all taxpayers, except for certain sectors. One of the exempted sectors is the taxpayers engage in infrastructure since the nature of their business is dominated more by debt than equity components. This study aims to provide empirical evidence that the regulation does not cause significant problems on effective tax rates (which reflects the level of tax evasion) of infrastructure companies and is considered appropriate. By using the infrastructure companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2009-2016 as the sample, there are 147 observations processed through regression analysis of unbalanced data panel by using the random effect method with the help of STATA software. It is proven that thin capitalization in infrastructure companies, which is characterized by a high debt to equity ratio (DER), does not have a significant impact on the effective tax rate (level of tax evasion). The implication of this finding is that the government has issued effective regulation and has regulated infrastructure companies quite well through other regulations. It can be seen that although the infrastructure companies are given the exemption to operate on more than four to one DER, it does not necessarily increase the tax evasion of infrastructure companies. Even so, the regulators still need to be aware of and evaluate this situation in order to reduce the incentives of infrastructure companies to carry out tax evasion in the future through DER flexibility that exceeds the four to one ratio.


The concentrations of selenium in 10 catchments of a stream network in northern Sweden were monitored over two years, yielding almost 350 observations of selenium concentrations in streamwater. The export of selenium was found to be systematically greater from forests than from mires. Accounting for atmospheric deposition, which was monitored over four years, there was a net accumulation of selenium in mires, while the export from forest soils was approximately equal to the atmospheric deposition. In forest dominated catchments the concentrations of selenium oscillated rapidly back and forth from high to low levels during spring floods. High selenium concentrations coincided with rising groundwater tables in the riparian forest soils, while low selenium concentrations were associated with receding groundwater. Thermodynamic modeling indicated that precipitation of elemental selenium would occur under reducing conditions in the riparian soils. Since changes in the redox conditions are likely to occur near the transition from the unsaturated to the saturated zone, it is hypothesized that the transport of selenium from forest soils to streams is controlled by redox reactions in riparian soils.


Background: Coronary-subclavial steal syndrome (CSSS) is a clinical condition characterized by the reversal of blood flow in the left internal thoracic artery (ITA) in patients who have undergone coronary revascularization using this artery. It is a rare cause of myocardial ischemia subsequent to stenosis or occlusion of the subclavian artery (SA) proximal to ITA coronary bypass. Proximal subclavian artery (SA) stenosis is present and atherosclerotic disease is the underlying pathophysiologic mechanism in the majority of cases. We report a series of patients with late CSSS treated through an endovascular approach.


In the Ethics, Badiou writes against ideal, abstract and rule-based conceptions of ethics. As in some pragmatic ethics, it implies denying the received moral vocabulary and focusing instead on agency. This explains why Badiou's Ethics is often read as a radical statement in today's normative landscape. This paper evaluates such a claim.In particular, it questions the extent to which an ethical approach that idealizes the situation through the notion of "fidelity to the event" can truly be non-ideal and radical. Three points are problematic. First, one has to discover actual "events" that demand ethical action; but who can tell us what an event is? Second, one has to be "faithful" to those events; but it is unclear whether Badiou allows for "evil" events and why fidelity to the event is better than its denial or occultation. Three, how can a non-ideal and radical ethical approach be premised on the idea of truth, and which consequences follow for its capacity to provide normative guidance?Put simply, this paper argues that while Badiou seems to perform a radical shift in contemporary moral reasoning, his contribution is more ambiguous. He seems to (i) reinstate an ethics based on naturalistic conceptions of good and evil; and, (ii) replace the role of reason in devising moral rules for the role of the philosopher that defines what counts as an event. Finally, while the results are modest, Badiou's ethics forces us to adopt a vocabulary that impoverishes the description of moral life, and fails to build an ethics that is sensitive to concrete situations.


Recent advances in "designer solvents" have facilitated the development of ultrasensi‐ tive gas sensing ionic liquids (SILs) based on quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) that can real‐time detect and discriminate volatile molecules. The amalgamation of tailored‐made SILs and label‐free QCM resulted in a new class of qualitative and semi‐quantitative gas sensing device, which represents a model system of electronic nose. Because a myriad of human‐made or naturally occurring volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are of great interest in many areas, several functional SILs have been designed to detect gaseous alde‐ hyde, ketone, amine and azide molecules chemoselectively in our laboratory. The versa‐ tility of this platform lies in the selective capture of volatile compounds by thin‐coated reactive SILs on QCM at room temperature. Notably, the detection limit of the proto‐ type system can be as low as single‐digit parts‐per‐billion. This chapter briefly introduces some conventional gas sensing approaches and collates recent research results in the inte‐ gration of SILs and QCM and finally gives an account of the state‐of‐the‐art gas sensing technology.


The article is devoted to substantiation of influence of personal experience as an organized semantic formation on the development of a psychologist professional competence. It is shown that the problem of professional competence development should be considered in the context of a post-nonclassical methodological approach that interprets an individual as a person which is capable of self-determination, self-creation and self-designing. The experience constructing as a necessary condition for personal development is interpreted as bringing sociocultural and personal information into the system, organizing this information into related structures that help to understand its meaning. Professional competence is considered as the unity of knowledge, which is necessary for successful professional activity and experience, which involves not only the possession of necessary practical skills and abilities, but also the presence of a specialist's developed field of professional meanings, which determine the creative nature of the psychologist's professional activity to a large extent. The personal experience is an organized and holistic structure, the source material for which is provided by real life and professional events. It can be considered as comprehension and ordering of current events, which arise in certain life and professional situations, and, being defined, understood and interpreted, they are transformed into personal experience. The main components of professional competence are cognitive, operational and communicative. They are formed at different stages of education in the process of carrying out the following activities: educational quasi-professional and educational-professional. It is shown that the development of all professional competence types is based on understanding a students' personal experience and to a great extent depends on the successful resolution of major conflicts – inconsistencies, desemantization and semantic conflict. Failure to resolve these conflicts blocks the development of the future specialist's semantic sphere and leads to the person's professional experience rigidity, uncertainty in his own professional capabilities, frustration in the future profession. It is proved that one of the conditions for resolving major conflicts is the development of the ability to understand and interpret, which are important procedures of the psychologist's practical activities, as well as his self-knowledge, self-development and professional reflection, thus enriching his professional and personal experience. It is also shown that the development of new schemes and scenarios of professional activity with the help of two main mechanisms for understanding and interpreting personal experience – semiotic and communicative, as well as the development of dialogism as one of the professionally important qualities of a psychologist, plays an important role in the development of a psychologist's professional competence.


In this letter, we compare two finite-volume (FV) techniques, viz., the field-based formulation and the coupled vector-scalar potentials formulation, for the modeling of borehole electromagnetic tools in 3-D earth formations. Eccentric boreholes, anisotropic dipping beds, and high-contrast multilayered earth formations are considered. We compare the two FV formulations in terms of accuracy, convergence rate, and CPU time. Although these two formulations yield similar accuracy in the examples considered, their efficiencies in terms of convergence rate and CPU time depends on the scenario.


All-Pervading sensing enabled via Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technologies has created a great impact on several areas of modern living stratum. It provides the facility to measure, conjecture and understand the environmental indicators starting from natural resources to metropolitan environment. The outburst of these devices in communicating-actuating network explores the Internet of Things (IoT), in which sensors and actuators binded together around us. Then the information is being shared among devices to develop a fully automated environment. Nowadays there are several applications supported by IoT, among that home automation, health care, social welfares are the major areas which attained more importance. In order to deal with emergency situations that arise in electricity supply station due to abnormal functioning of transformers, capacitors and reactors, its technological parameters must be monitored.The number of parameters to be measured and monitored is likely to error prone when it would be processed manually. This proposed system presents an IoT based real time online electric substation monitoring system and it can monitor as many transformers located at heterogeneous locations. By regular remote monitoring of transformers, capacitors, reactorshuge loss can be avoided and also can make accurate decisions using IoT.


The concept of pre-laboratoryactivities is familiar to chemists.Students complete some work beforethe laboratory session with a view tofamiliarising themselves with anexperimental technique or someunderlying principles of theexperiment. Therefore, more thanmost educators, it is not a bigconceptual leap for chemists toconsider pre-lecture activities in theirteaching, with a similar purpose ofpreparing the mind of the learner.The underlying pedagogy of prelectureactivities is grounded incognitive load theory (see box, p25).As learners are exposed to newinformation, they process what theysee and hear in the working memory.The amount of information − calledthe cognitive load − that can beprocessed is limited, and depends onthe learner's prior knowledge. Themore a learner knows about a subject,the easier it is to assimilate the newlyacquired information into the longtermmemory. Cognitive load theoryprovides a basis for describing howmuch new information should bepresented (intrinsic load) and how thisis presented (extraneous load) so thatthere is capacity for learning (germaneload) to take place. For learners new toa topic or discipline, reducing theamount of new information presentedin any single learning situation andpresenting the information clearly,leaves more capacity for learning.Pre-lecture activities aim to directlyaddress the intrinsic load componentof cognitive load. By providinglearners with some information priorto the class, the amount of newinformation presented during classtime is reduced. Learners have time toprocess the information provided inadvance, and if structured properly,they can use this information in a classsetting. This opens up severalquestions for implementation inpractice: what form the pre-lectureactivities take; how much informationto provide in advance; how to ensurestudents will look at this information;and how the pre-lecture information isused in class time


Sn whiskers can grow spontaneously on the surface in Sn alloy coatings. This paper focused on the mechanism of whisker growth on the pure Sn coating to Cu leads in electronic components. After the rack plating process the pure Sn coating was annealed at 150°C for one hour and measured about 10mm in thickness. Then samples endured the high temperature/humidity storage tests (60°C and 87%RH) from 1 month to 6 months. The experimental results revealed that Sn whiskers were prone to grow from the surface with local corrosion in the Sn coating. This was the high temperature/humidity storage provided much moisture to cause an electrochemistry corrosion between Sn and H2O. The excess formation of SnO2 had a large molar volume comparing to Sn and this generated a high inner stress in the corroded areas to shear the coating surface producing the defects. The compressive stress deriving from the formation of Cu-Sn intermetallic compounds drove Sn whiskers initially grew from the corroded areas.


While Garrison's model has been mostly used to analyze, theoretically and empirically, business cycles, other potential venues have not been explored. The effects of fiscal policy is one of these applications. In this paper we show how Garrison's model can be used to analyze the effects of fiscal policy in the presence of idle resources. This yields two important results. Particularly, our application of Garrison's model shows that even if starting with idle resources fiscal policy manages to reach potential output, the result is imbalances in how resources are allocated in the structure of production of the economy.


Penguin is a Macintosh computer application that facilitates the use of CALIB 3.03, the 14C age calibration program by Stuiver and Reimer (1993). Penguin offers an easy user interface based on the well-known Macintosh standard multiwindow environment to create and edit the CALIB 3.03 calibration files and to export data in text format. Penguin and CALIB interact at the file level, i.e., Penguin is capable of reading and writing files in CALIB formats. Files containing the data are created in the Penguin environment and then saved on disk in the Penguin format. Penguin allows multiple editing of the calibration parameters and recalibration of the list of samples without the need to insert any modifications manually throughout the list. Penguin can also be used to read already calibrated files in order to extract the "cal" ages and display them in a spreadsheet-like window.


Shoots of three landraces of a Vigna species from two climatic areas of Cameroon were evaluated for their content of heat-resistant peroxidases. The peroxidase activity in the three landraces was detected with a greater catalytic efficiency for oxidation of O-dianisidine relative to ABTS (2, 2'-azino-bis-(3- ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) at pH 5. For example, with respect to the landrace named Vs1 in this study, V max /Km for O-dianisidine was around 0.68 compared to ABTS (0.01). The results revealed a great thermal stability of peroxidases of a landrace cultivated in the hotter northern part of Cameroon (average temperature of 29°C). Residual activity in this landrace was 67, 34 and 3.4% after preincubation for 1 h at 70, 75 and 80°C respectively. For this same landrace, peroxidase activity did not significantly reduce after pre-incubation for 1 week at 55°C and was more than 60% after 3 weeks at 55°C. After storage for 365 days at room temperature (25°C), peroxidase activity remained above 30% for all three Vigna landraces, but higher at 47% for Vigna from the hotter area. Such thermal stability of peroxidases was not observed in maize, beans or peanuts in this study. The addition of calcium chloride in the crude extract of the more resistant Vigna landrace led to a total inhibition of thermal inactivation, after pre-incubation for 10 min at 80°C. These findings make this Vigna landrace a source of highly useful peroxidases in biotechnology, especially as part of bench top diagnostic kits in Africa that do not require cold chains. Key words: Vigna, peroxidase, shoots, thermal stability.


Methods for synthesizing servomechanisms are reviewed, and it is pointed out that stability criteria, frequency, and root-locus methods reduce to conditions on the transfer-function constants. These may be made mathematically specific following Whiteley's suggestion of "standard forms." Eight mathematical criteria for optimum transient responses are critically examined, and the clear superiority of the minimum integral of time-multiplied absolute-value of error is demonstrated. The application of this criterion results in the selection of standard forms, which are presented in tables.


Schizosaccharomyces pombe ultraviolet DNA endonuclease (UVDE or Uve1p) has been shown to cleave 5' to UV light-induced cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPDs) and pyrimidine-pyrimidone (6-4) photoproducts (6-4PP). This endonuclease is believed to function in the initial step in an alternative excision repair pathway for the removal of DNA damage caused by exposure to UV light. An active truncated form of this protein, Delta228-Uve1p, has been successfully overexpressed, affinity purified and partially characterized. In the present study we present data from a detailed substrate specificity trial. We have determined that the substrate range of Uve1p is much greater than was originally believed. We demonstrate that this DNA damage repair protein is capable of recognizing an array of UV-induced DNA photoproducts (cis-syn-, trans-syn I- and trans-syn II CPDs, 6-4PP and Dewar isomers) that cause varying degrees of distortion in a duplex DNA molecule. We also demonstrate that Uve1p recognizes non-UV-induced DNA damage, such as platinum-DNA GG diadducts, uracil, dihydrouracil and abasic sites. This is the first time that a single DNA repair endonuclease with the ability to recognize such a diverse range of lesions has been described. This study suggests that Uve1p and the alternative excision repair pathway may participate broadly in the repair of DNA damage.


A D-grade type coal was burned under simulated domestic practices in a controlled laboratory set-up, in order to characterize emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs); viz. benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes (BTEX). Near-field concentrations were collected in a shack-like structure constructed using corrugated iron, simulating a traditional house found in informal settlements in South Africa. Measurements were carried out using the Synspec Spectras GC955 real-time monitor over a three-hour burn cycle. The 3-hour average concentrations (in µg/m3) of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, p-xylene and o-xylene were 919 ± 44, 2051 ± 91, 3838 ±19, 4245 41 and 3576 ± 49, respectively. The cancer risk for adult males and females in a typical SA household exposure scenario, was found to be 1.1 -1.2 and 110-120 folds higher than the US EPA designated risk severity indicator (1E-6), respectively. All four TEX compounds recorded the Hazard Quotient (HQ) of less than 1, indicating a low risk of developing related non-carcinogenic health effects. The HQ for TEX ranged from 0.001– 0.05, with toluene concentrations being the lowest and ethylbenzene the highest. This study has demonstrated that domestic coal burning may be a significant source of BTEX emission exposure.


Abstract We used intensity information from five calibration earthquakes to estimate an intensity attenuation model for the Rio Grande rift region (encompassing west Texas, New Mexico, and southern Colorado). The attenuation model lies between similar models developed for the Basin and Range Province and central and eastern North America. Analysis of two test earthquakes occurring in 1931 and 2014 validated that the intensity attenuation relation adequately predicted the events' magnitudes and epicenters. We then analyzed intensity information for nine historical (1906–1960) earthquakes to determine their magnitudes and epicenters. Our results indicate that the largest earthquakes of the 1906 Socorro, New Mexico, sequence had intensity magnitudes ( M I ) 5.7–5.9 and may represent north‐to‐south migration of seismicity associated with the Socorro magma body. Moderate earthquakes in 1935 and 1960 also are associated with the magma body. The 1938 Arizona–New Mexico border earthquake sequence occurred about 50 km northeast of the ongoing 2014 Arizona–New Mexico border sequence. The 17 September earthquake of the 1938 sequence had an M I (4.1) that was about 1.0 units less than that of the 29 June 2014 Arizona–New Mexico event ( M I  4.9).


The Liber Athenagorae de urinis is mostly a Latin translation of Pseudo- Galen's treatise De urinis, which was published for the first time by Chartier in his edition of Galen and then by Kuhn (XIX 574-601). Such a translation, accurate and precise, was probably done in late antiquity (V-VI c.). It is entirely preserved in only one manuscript (Vat. lat. 1304, XIV c.), while another manuscript (Par. lat. 7028, X-XI c.) contains the first ten chapters and part of chapter 11; finally a third manuscript (Par. lat. 6882A, XIII c.) transmits an abbreviated version. This article presents the Liber Athenagorae de urinis (tradition, Greek source, language and style) and provides the first critical edition of the text and also of the abbreviated version. Key words : Liber Athenagorae de urinis - Pseudo-Galen's De urinis - Critical edition


A novel platform for the detection of plasmonic resonance is proposed and demonstrated with silicon nitride trampoline nanomechanical resonator. Absorption cross section could be derived directly from the shift of the mechanical resonance frequency. As a proof of principle, gold bowtie nanostructures with various gap sizes were deposited with focused electron beam induced deposition onto the trampoline resonator, and scanned with laser-Doppler vibrometer. Finite-difference time domain simulations on bowtie nanostructures are also done for comparison, which shows a consistent trend with the measured absorption. With further optimization, this technique provides a simpler alternative for the identification of sub-wavelength nanostructures and optimization of plasmonic designs.


A modified free-wake vortex ring model is proposed to compute the dynamics of a floating horizontal-axis wind turbine. The model is divided into two parts. The near wake model uses a blade bound vortex model and trailed vortex model, which is developed based on vortex filament method. By contrast, the far wake model is based on the vortex ring method. This is a good compromise between accuracy and computational cost. In this work, the model is used to assess the influence of floating platform motions on the performance of a horizontal-axis wind turbine rotor. The results are validated on the 5MW NREL rotor and compared with other vortex models for the same rotor subjected to different platform motions. It was found that the result from the proposed method are more reliable than the results from BEM theory especially at small angles of attack in the region of low wind speeds, on the one hand, and high wind speeds with blade pitch motions, on the other hand.


Avionics Full Duplex Switched Ethernet (AFDX) standardized as ARINC 664 is a major upgrade for avionics systems. The mandatory certification implies a worst-case delay analysis of all the flows transmitted on the AFDX network. Up to now, this analysis is done thanks to a tool based on a Network Calculus approach. The more recent Trajectory approach has been proposed for the computation of worst-case response time in distributed systems. This paper shows how the worst-case delay analysis of the AFDX can be improved using an optimized Trajectory approach. The Network Calculus and the Trajectory approaches are compared on a real avionics AFDX configuration. Moreover, an evaluation of an upper bound of the pessimism of each approach is proposed.


Inherited and de novo genetic variants that carry an increased risk for autism also can affect behavior and developmental traits within the general population, according to recent research. A Nature Genetics study reports that people with autism have more severe presentations of certain behavioral and communication traits that exist in milder forms within the general population but don't warrant a clinical diagnosis (Robinson et al., 2016). The study bolsters research that suggests neuropsychiatric conditions exist on a continuum. "If a child in the general population carries more genetic risk for ASDs [autism spectrum disorders], either common polygenic or de novo, you expect to see, on average, more social communication diffi culties," says fi rst author Elise B. Robinson, PhD, Instructor in the Analytic and Translational Genetics Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital and at Harvard Medical School, both in Boston. She is also an affi liated scientist at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. While these fi ndings will have no immediate impact on clinical practice, they will affect have future research. "These results suggest that familiarity should be studied in a manner beyond a count of categorically affected family members, and that trait variation in controls can provide insight into the underlying etiology of severe neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders," the researchers write. "There are way more controls than cases, and we need to understand how to better use them," Dr. Robinson adds. The Study The researchers' goal was to better understand how particular genetic variants found in people with autism contribute to milder social and communication differences in the general population. "We estimated the relationship between genetic risk for ASDs and typical variation in social and communication behavior in the general population," explains Dr. Robinson. "Some of those genetic risk factors include common complex infl uences that one inherits from parents and are spread across the genome, much like the genetic infl uences on height." The researchers looked at social and communication impairment as measured by the Social and Communication Disorders Checklist (SCDC) in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, a cohort that includes children born in Bristol, England in 1991 and 1992. The researchers correlated the genetic infl uences on SCDC scores among these children with children diagnosed with autism using autism data. They next identifi ed common variants associated with autism in 10,600 patients with autism and controls enrolled in the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium and in nearly 8,000 cases and more than 11,300 controls from the Danish iPSYCH project. Based on analysis of data, the researchers estimated that approximately one-quarter of the genetic infl uences on autism also infl uence SCDC scores. This fi nding suggests that autism's correlation with social and communication traits in the general population is at least as strong as the correlation between SCDC scores and other psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder. The researchers also analyzed data— including extensive phenotypic and de novo variant information—from the Simons Simplex Collection, which houses data on 2,800 individuals with autism, plus their parents and siblings, including unaffected ones. The researchers found de novo variants associated with autism risk in 22.1% of cases and 13.2% of undiagnosed siblings. The researchers say the fi gures support the idea that these variants contribute to a continuum of behavioral and social traits involved in autism.


This study tackles the decomposition of efficiency with respect to agricultural production in transition economies by using a case study on small scale maize farmers in Romania. The underlying modelling assumption is that farmers in transition countries still face heavily distorted price systems. To capture such distortions a stochastic shadow cost frontier model is formulated to investigate the systematic input specific allocative inefficiency. We further adjust the underlying cost frontier by incorporating shadow price corrections and subsequently reveal evidence on farm specific technical inefficiency. Different models are estimated due to the imposition of curvature correctness. The empirical results confirm the underlying hypothesis of enduring price distortions.


Verification and validation (V&V) is performed during application development for many systems, especially safety-critical and mission-critical systems. The V&V process is intended to discover errors, especially errors related to critical processing, as early as possible during the development process. Early discovery is important in order to minimize the cost and other impacts of correcting these errors. In order to provide early detection of errors, V&V is conducted in parallel with system development, often beginning with the concept phase. In reuse-based software engineering, however, decisions on the requirements, design and even implementation of domain assets can be made prior to beginning development of a specific system. In this case, V&V must be performed during domain engineering in order to have an impact on system development. This paper describes a framework for performing V&V within architecturecentric, reuse-based software engineering. This framework includes the activities of traditional application-level V&V, and extends these activities into domain engineering and into the U'ansition between domain engineering and application engineering. The framework includes descriptions of the types of activities to be performed during each of the life-cycle phases, and provides motivation for the activities.


In statistical disclosure control, the goal of data analysis is twofold: the information released must provide accurate and useful statistics about the underlying population of interest, while minimizing the potential for an individual record to be identified. In recent years, the notion of differential privacy has received much attention in theoretical computer science, machine learning and statistics. It provides a rigorous and strong notion of protection for individuals' sensitive information. A fundamental question is how to incorporate differential privacy in traditional statistical inference procedures. We study model selection in multivariate linear regression under the constraint of differential privacy. We show that model selection procedures based on penalized least squares or likelihood can be made differentially private by a combination of regularization and randomization, and we propose two algorithms to do so. We show that our privacy procedures are consistent under essentially the same conditions as the corresponding non‐privacy procedures. We also find that, under differential privacy, the procedure becomes more sensitive to the tuning parameters. We illustrate and evaluate our method by using simulation studies and two real data examples.


The production of peat supplies approximately 4 % of the total energy consumption on Finland. Peat is produced in bogs, where the produced fuel is stored in stockpiles. Because of self-heating caused by microbe activities and chemical reactions there is an annual loss of about 5% of the energy content of stored peat. The supervision based on visual control combined with manual temperature measurements carried out on the peat bog is expensive, and furthermore a very unreliable method. Because the warm patterns in the peat stockpiles are not necessarily found. The damages can partly be avoided when self-heating is observed in time and the necessary actions are carried out. The Research Institute of Northern Finland, University of Oulu, started an experimentation of airborne thermal scanning supervision of peat stockpiles on initiative of A. Jalander Oy, a subsidiary of Kemira Oy, in 1987. The field studies have been made as a co-operate project of the Research Institute of Northern Finland and Building Laboratory, Technical Research Center of Finland (Oulu, Finland). During the experiment 2800 thermograms were taken of peat stockpiles, the inner temperature of 200 of the stockpiles being controlled on the bogs. On the basis of the studies it has been possible to define the criteria for thermal scanning of peat stockpiles. Depending on the weather conditions, even a difference of 2 degrees in the surface temperature of the stockpile can indicate a warmed pattern. In autumn 1990 a regular airborne supervision based on thermal scanning was started on the peat bogs of two producers, the peat bogs containing altogether approximately 1 million m3 of peat, the area supervised being about 3500 hectares. The flights were made three times an autumn with intervals of 4 weeks. The flights have been made on a four-seated airplane, the frame of which was equipped with a hole for the infrared scanner. The results were documented on videotape, and video printer shots of the suspected warmed stockpiles were sent to the producers. The supervision has proved to be quite reliable. The self-heating of the stockpiles has been observed at an early stage long before the ignition. The costs of airborne supervision have been covered with the amounts of the saved energy.


It is necessary to develop a concrete revetment block which can cater for environment and at the same time it will be effective in protecting river banks (stabilize the slope of banks) from scouring during flood. In the present study, the environmental and hydraulic performance of the proposed revetment block was evaluated through laboratory and field tests. The tested revetment block is called bio-composite because it is composed of concrete, plastic mesh and biological material (coconut husk). The dimensions of the bio-composite revetment block are 400 mm x 400 mm x 100 mm (length x width x thickness) and has a central opening with a dimensions of 280 mm x 140 mm that has a 10 mm layer of coconut husks protected by two layers of plastic mesh. The coconut husk was selected based on laboratory experiments. The experiments showed that the coconut husk is a good media for grass growth and it allows faster growth of grass compared with other tested types of biological wastes (sugar cane husk and oil palm husk). Field tests were conducted on a selected stream which is located at the Universiti Putra Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia. The stream banks were protected from scouring by using the bio-composite blocks and monitoring after installation revealed that rate of grass growth was 15% per week. However, it was found that the rate of grass growth is depends on the slope of stream banks. This confirms that the proposed bio-composite block is friendly to the environment and can give a good aesthetic appearance. For a given water depth, hydraulic tests showed that the value of Manning coefficient of roughness for the bio-composite revetment blocks depends mainly on the rate of grass growth. The values of Manning coefficient roughness for the stream were found to range from 0.031 to 0.055.


The aim of this paper is to estimate households' willingness to pay (WTP) for the development of community based tourism (CBT) around Alelo Bad hot spring water. To achieve the stated objective, relevant data was collected from a total of 157 sample respondents through questionnaires, interviews and field observation techniques. In this study, both descriptive and econometric models (Seemingly Unrelated Bivariate Probit and Probit models) were used to analyze the collected data. The descriptive statistics clearly shows that 66.24% of the respondents were willing to pay for the existence of the proposed project while 33.76% were not willing to pay. The seemingly unrelated bivariate probit model output revealed that the mean WTP of the sample household heads per year for the proposed project was birr 468.75 ($16.401) as well as the total sample respondents has estimated to pay birr 73,593.75 ($2,575.045) per year per household head. Gender, age, family size, off-farm income, education status, social responsibility and initial bid values were statistically significant variables which affect the WTP decision of household heads in the study area. The government should create a conducive environment for different stakeholders to actively engage in boosting the returns of the tourism sector and fulfillment of the proposed project in the study area. The tourism policy should be amended in the form of allocating higher proportion of the revenue obtained from the tourism sector to the local communities for the development of social infrastructure, improving the living standard of the local communities and sustaining resource conservation.


This study on the impact of import support on food security was conducted in eight developing countries -including Indonesia- that were facing food insecurity and were recipients of subsidized exports and food aid. In Indonesia, the analysis of import flows in comparison with overall production and consumption data led to the selection of the three import substitute commodities, soybean, sugar and milk, that were the focus of this study. The objective of the study was to provide an analysis of the national impact of export support measures on food security, by taking into account their impact on the producers and consumers of the three commodities.