The objective of this article is two folded. Firstly, we proceed to an analysis of the evolution of productive specialization in the enlarged EU, taking into account all its actual 27 member countries. Given their decomposability properties, we use the entropy-based indices to measure countries' relative specialization and then, given our rather short period of analysis, we use the bootstrap method to analyze the evolution of the specialization index. We first analyze all economic sectors and then, our analysis is more detailed focusing on manufacturing industries. Globally, we find that specialization is decreasing across all economic sectors, while it is increasing across manufacturing industries. Secondly, we study specialization determinants, with a special interest for the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI). For homogeneity reasons, we analyze two separate samples, one including only developed countries of the European Union and the other, only developing member countries. In order to take into account endogeneity highly probable of most of our independent variables, we use the vector autoregression (VAR) technique and analyse the impulse response functions. Globally, FDIs seem to positively influence countries' relative specialization, for our both samples and for both economic sectors and manufacturing industries. However, their impact appears weaker than most of the other independent variables, such as market potential or relative endowments.


Defect prediction models are proposed to help a team prioritize the areas of source code files that need Software Quality Assurance (SQA) based on the likelihood of having defects. However, developers may waste their unnecessary effort on the whole file while only a small fraction of its source code lines are defective. Indeed, we find that as little as 1-3 percent of lines of a file are defective. Hence, in this work, we propose a novel framework (called Line-DP) to identify defective lines using a model-agnostic technique, i.e., an Explainable AI technique that provides information why the model makes such a prediction. Broadly speaking, our Line-DP first builds a file-level defect model using code token features. Then, our Line-DP uses a state-of-the-art model-agnostic technique (i.e., LIME) to identify risky tokens, i.e., code tokens that lead the file-level defect model to predict that the file will be defective. Then, the lines that contain risky tokens are predicted as defective lines. Through a case study of 32 releases of nine Java open source systems, our evaluation results show that our Line-DP achieves an average recall of 0.61, a false alarm rate of 0.47, a top 20%LOC recall of 0.27, and an initial false alarm of 16, which are statistically better than six baseline approaches. Our evaluation shows that our Line-DP requires an average computation time of 10 seconds including model construction and defective line identification time. In addition, we find that 63 percent of defective lines that can be identified by our Line-DP are related to common defects (e.g., argument change, condition change). These results suggest that our Line-DP can effectively identify defective lines that contain common defects while requiring a smaller amount of inspection effort and a manageable computation cost. The contribution of this paper builds an important step towards line-level defect prediction by leveraging a model-agnostic technique.


Activator protein-2α (AP-2) is a transcription factor that regulates proliferation and differentiation in mammalian cells. We have shown previously that although AP-2 is expressed highly in normal prostatic epithelium, its expression is lost in high-grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia and prostate cancer, suggesting that loss of AP-2 plays a role in prostate cancer development. We demonstrate that forced AP-2 expression in the prostate cancer cell line LNCaP-LN3 (AP-2 negative) inhibited dramatically tumor incidence in nude mice. To identify the genes that might have been responsible for this effect, we used microchip expression array. We found several genes known to be involved in malignancy were deregulated, including the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) gene. Because VEGF was down-regulated by 14.7-fold in the AP-2-transfected cells and because it is a major angiogenic factor in prostate cancer development and progression, we chose to examine the AP-2-VEGF interaction. Our evidence suggests that AP-2 repressed transcriptionally the VEGF promoter by competing with the transcriptional activator Sp3. Loss of AP-2 in prostate cancer cells reduced the AP-2:Sp3 ratio and activated VEGF expression. AP-2 acts as a tumor-suppressor gene in prostate cancer. Elucidating the molecular events resulting from loss of AP-2 in the prostate epithelium has implications for the understanding and prevention of the onset of prostate cancer.


The measurement of productivity
and efficiency of activities in the Swedish construction sector is examined.
Understanding past and present levels of productivity is necessary to steer
emerging and future developments aimed at increasing efficiency of
construction. The absence of purposeful measurement methods and tools for
determining current and targeted levels of productivity creates confusion for
clients, designers, constructors and end-users, who are unable to make confident
forecasts of costs and revenues or benefits over project life cycles. The
findings of an investigation using panels of expert practitioners guided by
senior researchers revealed shortcomings in the understanding of factors of driving
productivity as well as uncertainty over where improvements might be achieved.
The significance of the findings is that methods and tools must be calibrated
to current and emerging construction practices and their technical bases rather
than continuing with measurements that were conceived for earlier processes and
products. The paper concludes with an outline of further research aimed at
improving self-learning in regard to both process and product as part of a
broad response to raising efficiency through innovation.


This study evaluates the formation of 13 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in chicken thighs and breasts, cooked by different methods. These methods are: madhbi, charcoal mandi, electric oven mandi, gas flame oven mandi and shawaya. Chicken samples were collected from a restaurant in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Analysis of the samples was carried out using high-performance liquid chromatography with a fluorescence detector (HPLC-FLD). The data obtained showed that madhbi chicken had higher PAHs levels than other cooking styles, with the mean concentration in chicken breast of 87.72 µg/kg and thigh of 75.56 µg/kg. Phenanthrene was the compound detected at the highest concentration in different cooking methods. There was no significant difference in concentration of PAHs between the parts of chicken cooked with the same method. However, the method of cooking had a significant impact on the formation of PHAs. Therefore, the formation of PAHs in chicken meat could be reduced
by choosing appropriate cooking methods. Moreover, the margin of exposure was used to assess the health risk in adults due to madhbi chicken ingestion. The results showed that there is no serious health concern.


The DEXA-method allows for bone mineral density measurements of different regions of the skeletal system. It is known that results obtained from the spine with this two-dimensional method may be biased in cases of spondylosis, spondylarthritis, and compression fractures; similarly biased results can be expected at the proximal femur due to morphometric peculiarities. The influence of anteversion and rotation of the femoral neck has been investigated in the present study. The results indicate that errors due to rotation as occurring in incorrect positioning or in arthrogenic variabilities mainly have effects on measurements of Ward's triangle: The average measurement error at 20 degrees external rotation amounts to 33.8% with a maximum of 66.5%. Measurements of the trochanteric region and of femoral neck region show a variation of 6.2% and 9.7%, respectively.


The design of 3D tensor fields is important in several graphics applications such as procedural noise, solid texturing, and geometry synthesis. Different fields can lead to different visual effects. The topology of a tensor field, such as degenerate tensors, can cause artifacts in these applications. Existing 2D tensor field design systems cannot handle the topology of 3D tensor fields. We present, to our best knowledge, the first 3D tensor field design system. At the core of our system is the ability to specify and control the type, number, location, shape, and connectivity of degenerate tensors. To enable such capability, we have made a number of observations of tensor field topology that were previously unreported. We demonstrate applications of our method in volumetric synthesis of solid and geometry texture as well as anisotropic Gabor noise.


Aims The purpose of this service review was threefold. We aimed to assess whether our asthma action plans were being utilised for acute attendees, as advised by the British Thoracic Society guidelines, and if so whether they were useful for caregivers. In addition we asked caregivers how we could improve the information provided. Methods Using the hospital coding system and electronic medical records we identified patients attending ED with a diagnosis of 'asthma' or 'viral induced wheeze' who were discharged home the same day. The period covered was 01/09/2013–14/10/13. Caregivers were contacted by telephone to complete a questionnaire about their experience of the action plans. Thematic analysis of qualitative data was performed. Results 50 patients were identified. In total 14 (28%) had received an action plan; 5 received one at discharge, 7 received theirs at the specialist asthma nurse clinic and 2 had plans from a previous inpatient admission. 13 out of the 14 with an action plan participated in the questionnaire. 11 used the plan and 11 rated it as helpful. Common themes discussed were: 1. Plans help to avoid/reduce medical input (n = 5). 2. Plans increase confidence and knowledge for future attacks (n = 8). 3. Plans are useful as a reference resource (n = 8). 4. Plans may be useful for others looking after the child (n = 6). Suggestions for improvement were; more information about long term care of wheeze (n = 4), a weblink to further resources (n = 4) and better correspondence and consistency between hospital and GP (n = 11). Conclusions Action plans are currently not being utilised efficiently in our ED. Education and improved accessibility to the plan for ED clinicians are to be recommended. Carers find action plans empowering. They can increase confidence in carers' ability to manage the child at home and aid other people looking after the child. The internet is a useful resource for parents. Links to credible websites could ensure correct advice is provided for the longer term management. Information sharing and consistency of advice between secondary and primary care may promote confidence in carers managing these children at home.


Successful reproduction and development of strong year classes of fish in storage reservoirs are commonly associated with reproductive seasons of high water level and extensive flooding. Responses to flooding are likely to be less pronounced or altogether different in mainstem navigation reservoirs that experience limited water level fluctuation. In these reservoirs, water regime characteristics such as timing of flooding, instability of water level, and water retention could supersede the effects of water level. We examined existing data to identify aspects of the water regime that have detectable consequence on juveniles of selected taxa in a sequence of four reservoirs of the Tennessee River that exhibited relatively small annual rises. Empirical models relating density of selected age-0 centrarchids to water regime suggested that descriptors of spring and summer flow through the reservoirs, water level instability, and summer water level were better related to juvenile densities than was spring water level. Different water regimes had different effects on the study species, and presumably other species in the fish communities. Therefore, a diversity of water regimes rather than a rigid rule curve is likely most beneficial to the long-term permanence of the fish assemblages of the study reservoirs. Fixed rule curves produce drawdown zones devoid of vegetation consisting primarily of mudflats of limited ecological value to floodplain species, and maintenance of water levels within the rule curve force operational drops and rises that adversely affect littoral spawners. In developing water management plans, regulatory agencies should consider incorporating managed randomness into rule curves.


Chitinase is an enzyme that degrades chitin on β-1,4-acetamido-2-deoxy-D-glycoside bound to produce Chitin oligosaccharide or its soluble monomer, N-acetylglucosamine (NAG). Chitinase are usually produced naturally by chitinolytic microorganism that are found in soil or water environment. Chitinase have been widely used for biocontrol agents of plant pests. The product from chitinase hydrolysis can be used as antiinflammatory agent and anti hyperpigmentation. This research was aimed to screen and evaluate the chitinolytic ability of 9 isolate. The best isolate was the one which produced high chitinolytic activity and hydrolyzed chitin into NAG. 9 isolate were examined and BPPTCC-2 was the best isolate which produced highest level of chitinolytic activity 0.1780 U/ml. The chitinase was able to hydrolyzed chitin resulting high yields of NAG 11.5% as the only product.


Concerns about the low representation of women in science and technology have been voiced for many years by scientists and non-scientists alike and have been the subject of much debate and research in education by governments and individuals. Current concerns about the underachievement of boys have led to the specific issue in secondary education of girls and physics sliding down the political agenda but the continuing general decline in the numbers of pupils opting for science is a worrying trend which needs to be addressed. Women's studies have involved looking for alternative approaches to the male dominated and orientated scientific establishment and feminist writers have discussed this area of discrimination and inequality from different standpoints. In this research, I used a feminist approach which emphasises: improving women's lives; criticising dominant systems of knowledge; being praxis-orientated and creative in order to change the way physics is taught in school. I carried out the research through the use of semi-structured interviews with pupils and teachers to shed light on the research questions which asked why boys felt encouraged to study physics whilst girls opted for other subjects;how teachers perceived science and how a feminist perspective could be related to a new science curriculum. The outcomes from interviews with pupils and teachers suggested ways in which physics could be more gender inclusive, by adopting interdisciplinary approaches, greater cross-curricular work and moving away from the emphasis on scientific facts towards greater debate and discussion.Further interviews with focus groups and case studies teachers pointed to possible changes and successful alternatives for physics classes through the adoption of different approaches: changing not only what was taught but how it was taught. I then worked with curriculum development colleagues to create a new science curriculum and this was successfully implemented in classes,showing that a change in approach to teaching about physics at school level is essential and could lead to greater pupil engagement in physics classes.


Two approaches were used to estimate future lake-level probabilities for Devils Lake. The first approach is based on an annual lake-volume model, and the second approach is based on a statistical water mass-balance model that generates seasonal lake volumes on the basis of seasonal precipitation, evaporation, and inflow. Autoregressive moving average models were used to model the annual mean lake volume and the difference between the annual maximum lake volume and the annual mean lake volume. Residuals from both models were determined to be uncorrelated with zero mean and constant variance. However, a nonlinear relation between the residuals of the two models was included in the final annual lakevolume model. Because of high autocorrelation in the annual lake levels of Devils Lake, the annual lake-volume model was verified using annual lake-level changes. The annual lake-volume model closely reproduced the statistics of the recorded lake-level changes for 1901-93 except for the skewness coefficient. However, the model output is less skewed than the data indicate because of some unrealistically large lake-level declines. The statistical water mass-balance model requires as inputs seasonal precipitation, evaporation, and inflow data for Devils Lake. Analysis of annual precipitation, evaporation, and inflow data for 1950-93 revealed no significant trends or long-range dependence so the input time series were assumed to be stationary and short-range dependent. Normality transformations were used to approximately maintain the marginal probability distributions; and a multivariate, periodic autoregressive model was used to reproduce the correlation structure. Each of the coefficients in the model is significantly different from zero at the 5-percent significance level. Coefficients relating spring inflow from one year to spring and fall inflows from the previous year had the largest effect on the lake-level frequency analysis. Inclusion of parameter uncertainty in the model for generating precipitation, evaporation, and inflow indicates that the upper lake-level exceedance levels from the water mass-balance model are particularly sensitive to parameter uncertainty. The sensitivity in the upper exceedance levels was caused almost entirely by uncertainty in the fitted probability distributions of the quarterly inflows. A method was developed for using long-term streamflow data for the Red River of the North at Grand Forks to reduce the variance in the estimated mean. Comparison of the annual lake-volume model and the water mass-balance model indicates the upper exceedance levels of the water mass-balance model increase much more rapidly than those of the annual lake-volume model. As an example, for simulation year 5, the 99-percent exceedance for the lake level is 1,417.6 feet above sea level for the annual lake-volume model and 1,423.2 feet above sea level for the water mass-balance model. The rapid increase is caused largely by the record precipitation


This guide shares sources that facilitate learning about recreation during leisure time from encyclopedias, databases, publications and websites. There is coverage of business, health, psychological and cultural aspects of both leisure and recreation.


This study was undertaken to investigate the use of e-mail and its implications under a telework environment for distributed software engineering. For this, the relative strength between a social influence and individual attributes in affecting teleworkers' e-mail use was studied. Management support was used as the representative social influence, and age, status, and ease of use represented individual attributes. An examination was also made on how e-mail use, individual attributes, and management support affected the perceptions of e-mail's information richness and e-mail productivity. Two different types of surveys, log sheets and perception-based self-reports, as well as interviews and e-mail correspondences composed the data sources. Three hierarchical regression models were defined and tested for the hypothesis validation. Data analysis indicated that management support was a much more powerful indicator for teleworkers' media use than individual characteristics. Furthermore, although labeled as a relatively lean medium from the media richness theory perspective, e-mail could become an effective and richer communication tool through an active social construction process of management support. Finally, the management support and perception of e-mail as a rich medium were both highly influential in creating teleworkers' positive perception on e-mail productivity. This study rendered a strong indication that effective adoption of e-mail by teleworkers as an information-rich medium could benefit distributed work and distributed organizations through enhanced work productivity.


The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae processes N-linked glycans in the Golgi apparatus in two different ways. Whereas most of the proteins of internal membranes receive a simple core-type structure, a long branched polymer termed mannan is attached to the glycans of many of the proteins destined for the cell wall. The first step in mannan synthesis is the initiation and extension of an -1,6-linked polymannose backbone. This requires the sequential action of two enzyme complexes, mannan polymerases (M-Pol) I and II. M-Pol I contains the proteins Mnn9p and Van1p, although the stoichiometry and individual contributions to enzyme action are unclear. We report here that the two proteins are each present as a single copy in the complex. Both proteins contain a DXD motif found in the active site of many glycosyltransferases, and mutations in this motif in Mnn9p or Van1p reveal that both proteins contribute to mannose polymerization. However, the effects of these mutations on both the in vivo and in vitro activity are distinct, suggesting that the two proteins may have different roles in the complex. Finally, we show that a simple glycoprotein based on hen egg lysozyme can be used as a substrate for modification by purified M-Pol I in vitro.


Ricin is a potent cytotoxin easily purified in large quantities. It presents a significant public health concern due to its potential use as a bioterrorism agent. For this reason, extensive efforts have been underway to develop antidotes against this deadly poison. The catalytic A subunit of the heterodimeric toxin has been biochemically and structurally well characterized, and is an attractive target for structure-based drug design. Aided by computer docking simulations, several ricin toxin A chain (RTA) inhibitors have been identified; the most promising leads belonging to the pterin family. To date, the most potent RTA inhibitors developed using this approach are only modest inhibitors with apparent IC50 values in the 10 -4 M range, leaving significant room for improvement. This thesis discusses the development of a subset of inhibitors belonging to the pterin family in which amino acids have been utilized as building blocks. Inhibitors in this family have achieved a significant increase in potency, and have provided valuable structural information for further development.


Marketing management presents challenging ground for the integrated use of intelligent agents. The design of a strategic marketing plan presents a natural division of four distinct yet independent decision problems. Concurrent execution of these four functions can yield a significant decrease in time‐to‐market for new products, and turnaround time for modified products. Electronic information is a two‐edged sword. On the one hand, it results in information overload, taxing the decision‐ making process. On the other hand, the electronic nature of these vast information flows makes them accessible to intelligent agents who can improve the decision‐making process. This paper presents the problem of information overload and decision‐making complexity in marketing management. In it, we present a blackboard‐based agent architecture that allows individual agents to proceed toward their given goals yet react opportunistically to developments reported by other marketing agents. We present the blackboard model of problem solving, and discuss why it is well suited to support multiple marketing agents. CMA, a multi‐agent model for concurrent marketing analysis, is discussed and the agent architecture required for creating a cooperating society of marketing agents is presented.


ABSTRACT Apical membrane antigen 1 (AMA1) is considered one of the leading candidates for inclusion in a vaccine against blood stages ofPlasmodium falciparum. Although the ama1 gene is relatively conserved compared to those for some other potential vaccine components, numerous point mutations have resulted in amino acid substitutions at many sites in the polypeptide. The polymorphisms in AMA1 have been attributed to the diversifying selection pressure of the protective immune responses. It was therefore of interest to investigate the impact of sequence diversity in P. falciparum AMA1 on the ability of anti-AMA1 antibodies to inhibit the invasion of erythrocytes in vitro by P. falciparummerozoites. For these studies, we used antibodies to recombinantP. falciparum 3D7 AMA1 ectodomain, which was prepared for testing in early clinical trials. Antibodies were raised in rabbits to the antigen formulated in Montanide ISA720, and human antibodies to AMA1 were isolated by affinity purification from the plasma of adults living in regions of Papua New Guinea where malaria is endemic. Both rabbit and human anti-AMA1 antibodies were found to be strongly inhibitory to the invasion of erythrocytes by merozoites from both the homologous and two heterologous lines of P. falciparum. The inhibitory antibodies targeted both conserved and strain-specific epitopes within the ectodomain of AMA1; however, it appears that the majority of these antibodies reacted with strain-specific epitopes in domain I, the N-terminal disulfide-bonded domain, which is the most polymorphic region of AMA1.


Three novel vic-dioxime compounds and their transition metal complexes were synthesized for the first time. These ligands are anti-glyoximehydrazine (GH2), anti-2-pyridinealdehydeglyoxime hydrazone (PyGH2) and anti-2-furancarboxaldehydeglyoxime hydrazone (FGH2). The synthesized anti-glyoximehydrazine was reacted with 2-pyridinealdehyde or 2-furancarboxaldehyde to obtain the PyGH2 and FGH2 ligands. Mononuclear complexes of these ligands with a metal-ligand ratio of 1:2 were prepared with Ni(II), Co(II) and Cu(II) ions. The structures of the ligands and complexes were determined by 1H n.m.r, i.r spectroscopy and elemental analytical techniques.


If academic research on performance measurement is to benefit the wider global community, an examination of its implementation under various contexts is vital. This paper, which focuses on the performance measurement systems of Australian and Hong Kong government departments, aims to just do this. Although both countries adopt an outputs-and-outcomes performance measurement framework, Australia's devolved approach to performance measurement contrasts that that of Hong Kong's centralized approach. This paper evaluates their performance measurement systems against five commonly recommended criteria for performance measures: validity, legitimacy, credibility, public accessibility, and functionality. Several criteria were found to interact with one another, suggesting that one cannot always get away with focusing on some of the features in a performance measurement system at the expense of other features. The similarities and differences found in the performance measurement systems between both countries are also discussed.


Verb Usage in Egyptian Movies, Serials, and Blogs: A Case for Register Variation Michael G. White Department of Linguistics, BYU Master of Arts This thesis contributes to the discussion of register variation within Egyptian Arabic by focusing on the usage of verbs in blogs and transcripts of movies and television. Register variation has been extensively researched for English as well as several other languages; yet, the lexical and grammatical features that distinguish registers of Egyptian Arabic have not been analyzed. Several challenges have prevented such an analysis, among them the perceived lack of an automatic annotator and the uncertainty of results. In order to overcome these challenges, two corpora were compiled: one containing texts from blogs and the other transcripts of movies and television shows. With each corpus representing a potential register of the dialect, the verbs in each corpus were lemmatized and semi-automatically annotated for either aspect or mood. The verbs were then counted according to lemma, aspect, and mood in order to determine the extent of variance between the two corpora. The effectiveness of the state-of-the-art automatic annotator was also evaluated by comparing the counts it provided to those produced from corrections of its output. This thesis found that verbs are in fact used differently in the two corpora suggesting register variation and identified potential verbal features characteristic of each register. It also found that the automatic tagger produced counts that lead to the same conclusions as the corrected annotation.


Motion information is essential in many computer vision and video analysis tasks. Since MPEG is still one of the most prevalent formats for representing, transferring and storing video data, the analysis of its motion field is important for real time video indexing and segmentation, event analysis and surveillance applications. Our work considers the problem of improving the optical flow field in MPEG sequences. We address the issues of robust, incremental, dense optical flow estimation by combining information from two different velocity fields, the available MPEG motion field and the one inferred by a multiresolution robust regularization technique applied on the DC coefficients. Thus, the regularization technique is based only on information that is directly available in the compressed stream, therefore avoiding time and memory consuming decompression. We extend standard techniques by adding a temporal continuity and an MPEG consistency constraint, both as mathematical constraints in the objective function and as hypothesis tests for the presence of motion discontinuities. Our approach is shown to perform well over a range of different motion scenarios and can serve as a basis for efficient video analysis tasks.


Abstract This article discusses the significance of the fact that educational sign language interpreting is evolving within the context of current practices of inclusive schooling. Sign language interpreters1 are already in the process of defining their professional authority and autonomy in relation to educational practices. From the perspective of mainstream education, achieving inclusion of all deaf children requires that the spoken English classroom be made accessible to the sign language-using deaf child. This social interplay suggests a symbiotic arrangement – one in which language mediation of an expressly certified quality lends credibility to the social efficacy of educational inclusion. Moreover, this symbiosis appears as an effective and positive response to legislation, in particular in relation to disability discrimination acts. However, this article raises deeper concerns about long-standing educational inequalities, and in particular the troubled status of linguistic rights in relation to deaf children within mainstream education. The argument, articulated with conceptual tools developed by Pierre Bourdieu, is that interpretermediated inclusion leaves unaddressed a number of challenges and opportunities relating to the specific abilities and educational potential of deaf children, leaving them locked in limiting forms of educational participation.


This study was undertaken in the main Cote d'Ivoire fish farming production regions. Fish farming were surveyed on the basis of socio-economic characteristics of fish farmers, farming practices and production depending to the systems. Results show that majority of fish farmers used semi intensive (51.8%) and extensive (42.9%) systems. Intensive system represented only 1.3% and rice-fish system 4.0% of fish farms. Tilapia, Heterotis and Catfish were the most species reared with frequencies depending to the system. In intensive system, rearing structures were tanks and floating cages and farms owner were native (50%) economic operator (75%) or salaried (25%). In contrast, in semi intensive systems, the popular rearing structures were earthen ponds (68.6%), and farms belong to native (61.5%) farmers (46.3%). Extensive and rice fish farming used earthen ponds associated to dams (52.7-66.7%) and 45.7-50% of proprietary were allochthonous famers (77.5-91.7%). Imported (50%) and national commercial feeds (50%) were used in intensive system. In semi intensive system, national commercial feeds (55.13%), agro-industrial byproducts (46.79%) and feeds produced by fish farmers (33.97%) were largely used while agro-industrial byproducts and/or non-conventional feeds were used in extensive and rice-fish system to feed fish. The average farm production of semi intensive and extensive systems most practiced varied between 395.25 and 2937.12 kg/year. The results suggest that optimization of the Ivorian fish farming production need the adoption of appropriate production practices. They also emphasize the need to promote the intensive and semi intensive systems to increasing marketable fish production.

 Key words: Fish farming, System, socio-economic, farming practices, production.


The remote sensing system simulation is used to study a proposed sensor concept. An overview of the instrument and its parameters is presented, along with the model of the instrument as implemented in the simulation. Signal-to-noise levels of the instrument under a variety of system configurations are presented and discussed. Classification performance under these varying configurations is also shown, along with relationships between signal-to-noise ratios, feature selection, and classification performance.


Research on the relationship between migration and HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa often shows that migrants are at higher risk of HIV infection because they are more likely to engage in risk behavior than non-migrants, and tend to move to areas of higher HIV prevalence. Instead of focusing on ways in which migration is an individual risk factor of HIV infection, I examine the possibility that HIV infection leads to migration. Using a longitudinal dataset of rural residents and migrants from Malawi, I find that migrants originating from rural areas are indeed more likely than non-migrants to be HIV positive and to have engaged in HIV risk behavior. However, HIV positive individuals are also more likely migrate than HIV negative individuals. The explanation for this phenomenon appears to be marital instability, which occurs more frequently among HIV positive individuals and leads to migration after marital dissolution.


Following the ideological disappointment of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, an Islamic revival arose in Egypt. Yet, far from a mechanical reaction to the decline of secular nationalism, this religious shift was the product of impassioned competition among Muslim Brothers, Salafis and state institutions and their varied efforts to mobilize Egyptians to their respective projects. By pulling together the linked stories of these diverse claimants to religious authority and tracing the social and intellectual history of everyday practices of piety, Aaron Rock-Singer shows how Islamic activists and institutions across the political spectrum reshaped daily practices in an effort to persuade followers to adopt novel models of religiosity. In so doing, he reveals how Egypt's Islamic revival emerged, who it involved, and why it continues to shape Egypt today.


Abstract There is now general agreement that many sedimentary basins on the northwest continental shelf of Europe underwent permanent exhumation during the Tertiary. The most dramatic indicator of this process is the present-day absence of up to 3 km of anticipated post-rift subsidence in the midlands of Britain and in the East Irish Sea. Any explanation must take into account the fact that the entire shelf has very small, long wavelength, free-air gravity anomalies. This constraint is of fundamental importance and implies either that the crust has been thickened, that phase changes have occurred within the lithosphere, or that low density material has been added to the lithosphere. Tertiary epeirogenic uplift and exhumation is often attributed to horizontal shortening which is assumed to be related in a general sense to Alpine mountain building. However, the removal of 3 km of sediment from a basin, which was originally 100 km wide, requires 20–30 km of shortening. Whilst minor Tertiary shortening is observed all over the continental shelf, nowhere is it sufficient to account for the inferred amount of denudation. More significantly, exhumation is thought to have commenced in the Early Tertiary and dramatically increases from south to north. Shortening is generally younger (mid-Tertiary) and decreases in intensity from south to north. Here we argue that Tertiary uplift and denudation are a consequence of regional igneous underplating. At the beginning of the Tertiary, rifting associated with the initiation of the Iceland plume generated substantial volumes of melt. Petrological arguments and the results from inversion of rare earth element concentrations of MgO-rich igneous rocks suggest that a minimum of 2–5 km of melt were produced beneath a substantial part of the continental shelf. We infer that much of this melt was trapped within the lithosphere, presumably close to the Moho, which would have acted as a density filter. Such underplating will have caused rapid surface uplift whilst maintaining isostatic equilibrium. Simple calculations based on deep seismic reflection data and the high P-wave velocities observed beneath Scotland are consistent with the petrological arguments.


It has been well recognised that medically unnecessary caesarean section (C-section) delivery could increase morbidity risks for both the mother and her child and also could put strain on both institutional and individual assets mainly in developing countries. The present study tried to assess the variations in C-section delivery rates by women's background characteristics and to examine the factors associated with C-section delivery in West Bengal—a state of India. Data from the third round of the District Level Household and Facility Survey (DLHS-3) 2007–2008, covering 6447 ever-married women of age 15–49 years, were used. The results reveal that about 12% women delivered their babies by C-section irrespec-tive of place of delivery, but it rose to about 24% in only institutional delivery. It is also found that the rate of C-section delivery was excessively high in private health facilities (55.8%) followed by higher educated women (50.4%) and for health insurance (36.4%), and antenatal care service eight or more times (36%). The results of predicted (adjusted) probability computed from logistic regression reveal that delivery in private health facilities, higher maternal age, lower birth order and higher level of education were the main influential factors of C-section delivery.


The reactions of substituted 1-phenylpyrazoles (phpyz-H) at [MCl2Cp*]2 dimers (M = Rh, Ir; Cp* = C5Me5) in the presence of NaOAc to form cyclometalated Cp*M(phpyz)Cl were studied experimentally and with density functional theory (DFT) calculations. At room temperature, time-course and H/D exchange experiments indicate that product formation can be reversible or irreversible depending on the metal, the substituents, and the reaction conditions. Competition experiments with both para- and meta-substituted ligands show that the kinetic selectivity favors electron-donating substituents and correlates well with the Hammett parameter giving a negative slope consistent with a cationic transition state. However, surprisingly, the thermodynamic selectivity is completely opposite, with substrates with electron-withdrawing groups being favored. These trends are reproduced with DFT calculations that show C-H activation proceeds by an AMLA/CMD mechanism. H/D exchange experiments with the meta-substituted ligands show ortho-C-H activation to be surprising facile, although (with the exception of F substituents) this does not generally lead to ortho-cyclometalated products. Calculations suggest that this can be attributed to the difficulty of HOAc loss after the C-H activation step due to steric effects in the 16e intermediate that would be formed. Our study highlights that the use of substituent effects to assign the mechanism of C-H activation in either stoichiometric or catalytic reactions may be misleading, unless the energetics of the C-H cleavage step and any subsequent reactions are properly taken into account. The broader implications of our study for the assignment of C-H activation mechanisms are discussed.


Necrotizing pneumonia is a rare complication of community-acquired pneumonia associated with destruction of the lung tissue during the infection and rise of necrotic foci in consolidated areas. Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes, Nocardia, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Streptococcus pneumoniae are the most common causative agents. Risk factors for developing necrotizing pneumonia include smoking, alcoholism, old age, diabetes mellitus, chronic lung diseases or liver disease. Diagnosis of necrotizing pneumonia requires supportive care, use of broad-spectrum antibiotics and monitoring for sepsis and respiratory failure. Hemoptysis, abscess, empyema and gangrene are possible complications and surgical intervention may be required. The authors present a clinical case of pneumococcal necrotizing pneumonia in a patient without important risk factors and favourable progression with medical therapy. In this regard, a brief bibliographic review about this pathology is also made.


The conversion of other forms of energy into mechanical work through the geometrical extension and retraction of nanomaterials has a wide variety of potential applications, including for mimicking biomotors. Here, using molecular dynamics simulations, we demonstrate that there exists an intrinsic energy conversion mechanism between thermal energy and mechanical work in the telescopic motions of double-walled carbon nanotubes (DWCNTs). A DWCNT can inherently convert heat into mechanical work in its telescopic extension process, while convert mechanical energy into heat in its telescopic retraction process. These two processes are nearly thermodynamically reversible. The underlying mechanism for this energy conversion is that the configurational entropy changes with the telescopic overlapping length of concentric individual tubes. We also find that the entropy effect enlarges with the decreasing intertube space of DWCNTs. As a result, the spontaneous telescopic motion of a condensed DWCNT can be switched to extrusion by increasing the system temperature above a critical value. These findings are important for fundamentally understanding the mechanical behavior of concentric nanotubes, and may have general implications in the application of DWCNTs as linear motors in nanodevices.


The small specimen technology is required in mechanical testing of irradiated materials because of very limited irradiation volume in currently available high flux reactors and future accelerator-based high energy neutron sources. In order to develop the methodology to evaluate the upper shelf energy (USE) for full size Charpy specimens of ferritic steels from miniaturized specimen data, the effects of specimen size and notch dimensions (notch root radius and notch depth) on the USE were studied for high strength ferritic steels with relatively low USE values of 135 and 107 J. The USE for miniaturized specimens, normalized by Bb{sup 2} or (Bb){sup 3/2} (B is the specimen thickness, b is the ligament size), was essentially independent of specimen size and tended to decrease with increasing the elastic stress concentration factor, K{sub t}, but the K{sub t} dependence was not significant. The normalized USE for full size specimens was considerably lower than that for miniaturized specimens. A general relationship was found that allows to determine the USE of full size specimens of ferritic steels directly from miniaturized specimen data.


Electron beam welding (EBW) has an important role in industrial applications such as semi-conductor and LCD manufactures because of its high performance and accuracy. Since the operation is done in a vacuum room, it is very difficult to test the weldability as well as the correct welding area of the specimen. In this study, a measurement system of the EBW was developed based on the 3-axis LVDT controlled table. In addition, the algorithm to tracking the welding line has been developed. The weldability of the aluminum specimen was tested by a newly developed measurement system with ultrasonic C-scan inspection.


The paper presents the results of investigations concerning the measurement of the refractive index and the thickness of planar waveguide structures, obtained by photo polymerization of the polymer SU8. In the paper the mode sensitivity has been calculated as a function of the thickness in a single-mode structure. The thickness of the layer has been determined in the case when the interferometer is most sensitive to changes of the refractive index.


A matter which is strongly debated in the SSA Community, concerns the observation of Space Debris from Space [1]. This topic has been preliminary studied by our Team for LEO, MEO and GEO orbital belts, allowing to remark a fundamental concept, residing in the fact that to be suitable to provide a functionality unavailable from ground in a cost to performance perspective, any Space Based System must operate in tight collaboration with an efficient Optical Ground Observation Network. In this work an analysis of the different functionalities which can be implemented with this approach for every orbital belt is illustrated, remarking the different achievable targets in terms of population size as a function of the observed orbits. Further, a preliminary definition of the most interesting missions scenarios, together with considerations and assessments on the observation strategy and P/L characteristics are presented.


Transformer-based sequence-to-sequence architectures, while achieving state-of-the-art results on a large number of NLP tasks, can still suffer from overfitting during training. In practice, this is usually countered either by applying regularization methods (e.g. dropout, L2-regularization) or by providing huge amounts of training data. Additionally, Transformer and other architectures are known to struggle when generating very long sequences. For example, in machine translation, the neural-based systems perform worse on very long sequences when compared to the preceding phrase-based translation approaches (Koehn and Knowles, 2017). We present results which suggest that the issue might also be in the mismatch between the length distributions of the training and validation data combined with the aforementioned tendency of the neural networks to overfit to the training data. We demonstrate on a simple string editing tasks and a machine translation task that the Transformer model performance drops significantly when facing sequences of length diverging from the length distribution in the training data. Additionally, we show that the observed drop in performance is due to the hypothesis length corresponding to the lengths seen by the model during training rather than the length of the input sequence.


This article describes findings from an empirical investigation of the pattern of Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title I case resolutions by the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) involving people with HIV/AIDS (n = 2,078) in comparison to the pattern of ADA Title I case resolutions involving all other people with disabilities between 1993 and 2002 (n = 187,684). Chi-square analysis revealed that people with HIV/AIDS are significantly more likely than other complainants to receive settlement benefits from their employers, to have their cases resolved with findings of reasonable cause, and to have their cases closed administratively by the EEOC. People with HIV/AIDS are less likely than other complainants to have charges resolved with a finding of no reasonable cause and to have their complaints resolved via other closures. Implications of these findings for vocational rehabilitation practice are presented.


This paper is devoted to the study of convergence conditions for the monotone and autonomous iterative algorithm schema. Two convergence conditions are presented, and it is shown that (i) they are not comparable and (ii) they contain the known convergence conditions for the schema. The presentation of the results is facilitated by the introduction of the concept of extended characteristic set of an iterative procedure.


In this thesis I shall consider the account of Saul's leadership of Israel as it is portrayed in the biblical text of 1 Samuel. Traditional accounts of Saul's leadership, both biblical and scholarly, have often made the paradoxical claim that Saul is at once both the first king and yet also a failed king. I shall argue that by adopting an alternative framework it is possible to propose an interpretation of Saul that does not fall into this paradox, one that sheds new light on the nature of the biblical character. In particular, I shall argue that Saul should be conceived, not as a failed king, but rather as a successful chief. In order to do this I shall draw upon the political anthropology of Pierre Clastres. I shall also criticize previous attempts to characterize Saul as a chief by drawing attention to the inadequacy of the conceptions of chief employed. In Part One I shall discuss the previous accounts of Saul, questions concerning the judgements inherent within the biblical text, and the perspectival nature of those judgements. I shall then consider previous attempts to present Saul as a chief and introduce the work of Pierre Clastres. In Part Two I shall turn to consider the biblical account itself. I shall examine the accounts of the call for a `king', the appointment of Saul as `king', and Saul's `reign' as `king'. In each case I shall argue that although Saul is explicitly proclaimed a `king', a careful reading of the biblical narrative shows that Saul functioned as a chief. I suggest that this functional analysis of Saul as chief enables one to shed light on a number of aspects of this biblical character that have until now remained unclear.


This article presents the research of the project Giving Young People a Voice: Advocacy in Children's Homes, set up as a result of the interest of a nonprofit organization working with looked-after children, with an aim to improve advocacy as a listening process and to promote the participation of children that reside in children's homes. The research focused on the implementation of a visiting advocacy project and the activities carried out by an independent advocate working in children's homes. The children's evaluation of the project was collected by two focus groups; interviews were conducted with social care workers and the manager of the organization. This research deals with the implementation of the first visiting advocacy project in the context of the Italian child protection system.


The description of different effects observed in nature by only one general equation is the "Holy Grail" for all physicists. This goal has been achieved for characteristic temperatures through a top-down approach (studying size effects from macroscopic laws) and is presented in this chapter. Here, we show the general equation based on the surface area to volume ratio of nanostructures and statistics (Fermi-Dirac or Bose-Einstein) followed by the particles involved in the investigated phenomena. From the distinction between fermions and bosons, so-called particles which follow a Fermi-Dirac or a Bose-Einstein statistics respectively, this equation indicates the universal behaviour of size and shape effects on different material properties like melting, ferromagnetism, vibration and superconduction. The same shape parameter used in this universal equation can be used to determine the melting enthalpy, the phase diagrams of alloys, the energy bandgap and also the creep behavior of nanomaterials. Theoretical predictions show satisfactory agreement with experimental data taken from literature.


In The Politics of Vibration Marcus Boon explores music as a material practice of vibration. Focusing on the work of three contemporary musicians—Hindustani classical vocalist Pandit Pran Nath, Swedish drone composer and philosopher Catherine Christer Hennix, and Houston-based hip-hop musician DJ Screw—Boon outlines how music constructs a vibrational space of individual and collective transformation. Contributing to a new interdisciplinary field of vibration studies, he understands vibration as a mathematical and a physical concept, as a religious or ontological force, and as a psychological determinant of subjectivity. Boon contends that music, as a shaping of vibration, needs to be recognized as a cosmopolitical practice—in the sense introduced by Isabelle Stengers—in which what music is within a society depends on what kinds of access to vibration are permitted, and to whom. This politics of vibration constitutes the hidden ontology of contemporary music because the organization of vibration shapes individual music scenes as well as the ethical choices that participants in these scenes make about how they want to live in the world.


Sweet potato is a perennial storage tuber crop grown as a food and/or cash crop. Soybean is a multipurpose crop grown for human food, livestock feed, soil fertility improvement, income generation and oil production among the smallholder farmers. Production of sweet potatoes in Kenya is however low due to various factors and constrains low soil fertility inclusive. This paper addressed soil fertility management and its effect on rotational cropping and the use of inorganic fertilizers on soybean sweet potatoes production. The study was carried out in two regions of Kenya; Kakamega County (Makunga sub County) and Elgeiyo Marakwet County (Kibargoi sub County). The study incorporated 147 respondents from the two regions with 42 in Kibargoi and 107 in Makunga. Sweet potato growing was important to 85.2% of respondents as food crop and 79.8% as a cash crop. The sweet potatoes varieties grown in the areas were dominated by Yellow Original Research Article Jepkemboi et al.; JSRR, 15(2): 1-11, 2017; Article no.JSRR.32797 2 fleshed, Purple fleshed, Vita and Kabode. Soybeans were grown by 7.1% in Kibargoi and 48.6% in Makunga. The common varieties included local, SP3, SP24 and SP25. The soybeans was consumed by 30.9% and grains used as alternatives to milk. The results indicated that farms where sweet potatoes were grown and organic fertilizers used, the relationship was relatively significant (r=0.158). Soybeans had a negative correlation with organic fertilizers with an r=-0.223, this interprets that the application of inorganic fertilizers to soybeans does not affect its output or yield. The fertility of soils were rated moderate by 81.2% while 8.7% rated fertility high (Kibargoi only). The loss of fertility is attributed to soil erosion 45.6% and previous growing of sugarcane in Makunga was cited as a challenge. Application of fertilizer on crops for fertility management was done by 65.1% (97) of the total respondents with 89.7% (96) from Makunga applying fertilizers and 2.4% (1) applying fertilizers to farms in Kibargoi, a pearsons correlation was conducted and an. r=0.216 in Makunga was obtained (significant positive impact of fertilizers on soil fertility), in the use of organic fertilizers was insignificant and not attached to land fertility and a Pearson correlation r=0.087 was attained. This indicates that farming in Kibargoi is not dependent of organic fertilizers as opposed to farming in Makunga where fertilizers dictate land fertility. It was therefore observed that the use of organic fertilizers do have an impact on land fertility as compared to the use of inorganic fertilizers.


ABSTRACT
Marketing is a distribution flow in a company where came production and distribution activities. Production is cigarette making process, while distribution was distributing production result to the consumer. From the marketing strategy, promotion division not only watching market segment, but also has role in reaching selling marketing stated by the company since price became the most powerful support which contributed to the products in market, HF. Prima Malang cigarette promotion has marketing area and market share involving Malang area and outside Malang. In its promotion, Sangkar Emas cigarette as branch market of HF. PRIMA cigarette company socialized the product by giving promotion price. Marketing strategy is a social process and managerial where individual and group get needs and will by creating, offering, and changing something each other. The marketing strategy was an activity aimed to fulfill certain needs. Theory used in analyzing the phenomena was structural functionalization theory and voluntaristic theory by Talcott Parsons. The research was done by qualitative approach with descriptive method. Data collection was done through: observation and interview and documentation. After it was validated, data analyzed by serving and analyzing then concluding. From the data, there could be concluded: (1) marketing inhibition in promotion division faced by HF. PRIMA Malang cigarette company were: lack of reaction in reading situational change or marketing condition, whether related with financial or marketed things, especially promotion. Beside, stuff stock and lack of promotion and decreased product quality and unsupported stock for promotion; (2) promotional strategy forced selling above social actor where the employee needs skill in market segment and image strengthen in product also consumer to reach target promotion and reach balance in company's financial and existing product stock. Beside, promotion had to be fit with existing segment in order to get potential consumer with products' symbols


Abstract Basalts from the volcano-sedimentaiy Eriksfjord Formation (Gardar Province, South Greenland) were erupted at around 1.2 Ga into rift-related graben structures. The basalts have compositions transitional between tholeiite and alkaline basalt with MgO contents <7 wt.% and they display LREE-enrichment relative to a chondritic source. Most of the trace element and REE characteristics are similar to those of basalts derived from OIB-Iike mantle sources. Initial 87Sr/86Sr ratios of clinopyroxene separates range from 0.70278 to 0.70383 and initial εNd values vary from -3.2 to +2.1. The most unradiogenic samples overlap with the field defined by carbonatites of similar age and can be explained by mixing of isotopically depleted and enriched mantle components. Using AFC modelling equations, the Sr-Nd isotope data of the more radiogenic basalts can successfully be modelled by addition of <5% lower crustal granulite-facies gneisses as contaminants. δ18Ov-smow values of separated clinopyroxene range from +5.2 to +6.0%o and fall within the range of typical mantle-derived rocks. However, up to 10% mixing with an average lower crustal component are permitted by the data.


Abstract An attempt to bring Husserl's phenomenology and psychopathology closer, based on the text of § 49 of the Ideen. What is an experience of annihilation of the world? How is a world undone? We will focus on the examples of the end of the world described in the stories of Gérard de Nerval and in the patients of Wolfgang Blankenburg.


The task-space tracking control of robots without the exact knowledge of kinematics and dynamics has been studied before with the assumption that the joint velocities are available for controller designs. However, the velocity measurements can be contaminated by noises, thereby resulting in poor system performance, or even leading to instability problems. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a new tracking controller for robots in the task space without the use of both task-space and joint-space-velocity measurements, under the condition that both the robot kinematics and dynamics are unknown. To overcome these incapacities without the velocity measurements, we introduce the well-known sliding-observer-design techniques to estimate the joint velocities for the purpose of our controller design. Our main concern, i.e., the stability analysis of our controller design incorporated with the siding observer, is presented with the help of Lyapunov-analysis methodology and the sliding-patch concept. Simulation results are presented to show the performance of our controller-observer designs.


In this paper, a new subpixel resolution land cover change detection (LCCD) method based on the Hopfield neural network (HNN) is proposed. The new method borrows information from a known fine spatial resolution land cover map (FSRM) representing one date for subpixel mapping (SPM) from a coarse spatial resolution image on another, closer date. It is implemented by using the thematic information in the FSRM to modify the initialization of neuron values in the original HNN. The predicted SPM result was compared to the original FSRM to achieve subpixel resolution LCCD. The proposed method was compared with the original unmodified HNN method as well as six state-of-the-art methods for LCCD. To explore the effect of uncertainty in spectral unmixing, which mainly originates from spectral separability in the input, coarse image, and the point spread function (PSF) of the sensor, a set of synthetic multispectral images with different class separabilities and PSFs was used in experiments. It was found that the proposed LCCD method (i.e., HNN with an FSRM) can separate more real changes from noise and produce more accurate LCCD results than the state-of-the-art methods. The advantage of the proposed method is more evident when the class separability is small and the variance in the PSF is large, that is, the uncertainty in spectral unmixing is large. Furthermore, the utilization of an FSRM can expedite the HNN-based processing required for LCCD. The advantage of the proposed method was also validated by applying to a set of real Landsat-Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) images.


This project is a combination of two different topics and both of them are very much similar in terms of eliminating or at least minimising the hazards related to steel industry. In the first phase it is the engineering control measure to minimise the risk of life to the workers on shop floor and the second phase concentrates on the hazard operability study in Blast Furnace.
In the first part, this project is centred in and around the engineering controls that can be followed to reduce the hazards faced by the workers on a regular basis. The use of electric overhead travelling cranes (EOT cranes) is a must in the steel industry and the risks associated with these cranes are inevitable. With the help of this project, we have tried to decrease the amount of risk to the worker during hooking and unhooking the ladle. There are some changes done to the design of the crane by placing load cells under the trolley unit of the crane to sense the load on the two ropes of the crane. The difference in load on the cells can be used to analyse, whether proper hooking and unhooking has been done or not. Extensive brainstorming is done to achieve the maximum efficiency from the design modification idea. The cost to the company is tried to keep as low as possible. This project will help the company in saving a lot of money which it needs to pay to the worker as compensation due to any accident.
The second part is based on the Hazard Operability (HAZOP) Study for Blast Furnace. Hazard operability (HAZOP) is a very necessary step to carry out the hazard identification process. HAZOP is useful in taking a tab on the existing hazards and the hazards which can evolve in the due course of time. To identify the hazards, there are mainly two techniques namely qualitative and quantitative. But HAZOP studies are mainly used to carry out the hazard identification. This process uses the guide words to find the level of risk involved in a process or in an area of concern. The concerned area is first chosen and then divided into sections called nodes. The nodes are the starting point or the point of reference for the studies. The sections mainly considered in this study are Pulverized Coal Injection (PCI), Gas Cleaning Plant (GCP), Stock Yard and Cast House. In this thesis we have done a detailed study of the processes involved in the Blast Furnace and then the risk and hazards are found out using brainstorming sessions. The motive of this study the deviations from the intent design and find out the causes for the deviations.
The whole project work, observations and analysis is documented and archived for future reference and can be used for further modifications of the processes of operation, if needed.


Environmental regulations targeting producers are in place around much of the world. Yet, there is limited evidence of how firms are affected by these policies. This thesis provides new empirical and theoretical evidence on the effects of environmental regulation on producers. The first two chapters of this thesis explore a trend underway in much of the industrialized world: pollution from manufacturing has been falling despite increased output. In the first chapter, we develop a theoretical model to show the channels through which regulation can contribute to an industry's "clean-up". This model highlights the role that fixed costs producers must pay to adopt cleaner production processes play in dictating these channels. We show that if these fixed costs are relatively low, the adoption of cleaner processes will be the primary regulatory channel of an industry's clean-up. However, if these fixed costs are relatively high, then plant exit and reductions in output from regulated plants will be the primary channels. The second chapter provides the first estimates of the regulatory channels of the manufacturing clean-up. We estimate the share of the Canadian manufacturing clean-up explained by the adoption of cleaner production processes, the reallocation of output across producers, and producer entry and exit. To do this, we examine a major revision to Canadian environmental policy using a novel, confidential dataset containing information on the production decisions and pollution emissions of Canadian manufacturing plants. We find regulation explains, at most, 61% of the Canadian clean-up, but the underlying channels differ strikingly across pollutants. A concern in debates over environmental regulation is a potential loss of international competitiveness among domestic producers. Despite its pervasiveness in policy discussions, evidence of these losses remains scarce. The third chapter of this thesis provides the first plantlevel estimates of the effect of air pollution regulation on exporting. We study the effects of the Canada-Wide Standards for Particulate Matter and Ozone on the decision to export and export volumes of Canadian manufacturing facilities. We find evidence that environmental regulation caused relatively low-productivity exporters to leave the export market, and reduced the amount surviving exporters sold abroad.


A small population of cancer cells called cancer-initiating cells or cancer stem cells (CSCs) are involved in drug resistance, metastasis, and cancer relapse. Finding pathways that regulate CSC is very important for clinical therapy. ATP-binding cassette sub-family G member 2 (ABCG2) plays a role in side population (SP) cell formation and contributes to chemotherapy resistance in common forms of cancer. Yes-associated protein 1 (YAP1) is a major transcriptional effector of the Hippo pathway, which plays important roles in organ size control and tumorigenesis. In this study, we found ABCG2 and YAP1 were both overexpressed in lung cancer SP cells. Disruption of YAP1 expression by siRNA attenuated the expression of ABCG2 transcript and significantly reduced the percentage of SP cells and sphere formation in lung cancer cells. Overexpression of YAP1 in lung cancers led to an increase in ABCG2 expression and increased the percentage of SP cells. However, overexpression of YAP1 in purified non-SP cells did not increase ABCG2 expression and the percentage of SP cells, which may be due to the inhibition of YAP activity through phosphorylation. YAP1 directly transcriptionally regulated ABCG2 by binding to the promoter of ABCG2. Moreover, the YAP1 inhibitor verteporfin and YAP1 siRNA downregulated ABCG2 level through inhibition of YAP1 in lung cancer cells and sensitized them to the chemotherapy drug doxorubicin. Our study adds a new function for YAP1 that may be relevant to drug resistance and cancer therapy through regulation of ABCG2 and side population cell formation in lung cancer.


A rainfall simulator was used to measure the ability of compost prepared from harvested aquatic weed (AWC) to reduce runoff and erosion from experimental plots compared with a bare earth control and commercially produced composted mulch and soil conditioners. A 1 in 10 year intensity rainfall event (67 mm hr−1) was applied to each plot for 30 min and runoff water was captured and water volume recorded. Treatment had no effect on the amount or rate of runoff. Water quality samples were collected and analysed for a number of parameters including the concentration of nutrients and total suspended solids (TSS). Load of exported nutrient and sediment (kg ha−1) was also calculated for total runoff. The application of AWC significantly (P<0.05) reduced the export of suspended solids from the plots, relative to the bare earth control by 34%. However, AWC was less effective in reducing nutrient and sediment export compared with the other compost treatments because it contained a smaller proportion (5.5%) of the larger (>15 mm) sized particles, which physically shield the soil surface and help trap entrained soil particles. Assessment of pasture growth and ground cover at 6 and 12 weeks after the rainfall simulations showed that AWC significantly (P<0.05) increased pasture dry matter production and ground cover relative to the bare earth control, which indicates it would be a good medium for pasture establishment, particularly in soils denuded of topsoil. Moreover, applying AWC at a depth of 20 mm supplied an equivalent of 699 and 95 kg TN and TP ha−1, respectively. Over time this should mineralise and provide some benefits with respect to soil fertility and plant nutrition.


Abstract It has been suggested that dirty surplus accounting (violation of the clean surplus relationship (CSR)) may result in mismeasurement of performance and value, and that cross-country variation in dirty surplus accounting may cause particular problems for international comparisons. Using articulated data that are largely hand-collected, we evaluate the potential impact of dirty surplus accounting in France, Germany, the UK and the US for the period 1993-2001. First, we report summary statistics on dirty surplus accounting flows. These indicate that distributions of dirty surplus flows are often not centred on zero, and that there is significant cross-country variation in such flows. Then, we use a measure of multi-period abnormal performance to document the bias and inaccuracy, and cross-country variation therein, that would have arisen from omitting dirty surplus flows in measuring performance. Where significant bias and cross-country variation therein arise, they are largely caused by omission of goodwill-related flows, which regulators are eliminating as a dirty surplus item. In contrast, all classes of dirty surplus flow contribute to significant cross-country variation in inaccuracy. Finally, we address the issue of dirty surplus flows from the valuation perspective. We use the residual income valuation model, which relies partly on CSR, to test whether perfect-foresight forecasts of dirty surplus accounting flows explain beginning-of-interval market-to-book ratios after controlling for other inputs to the valuation model. We find little evidence to suggest that omission of dirty surplus flows from residual income value estimates would have caused systematic valuation errors in the period and countries examined.


Population parameters of main cichlids species from the anthropological coastal zone of the north of Lake Tanganyika were investigated using length-frequency data sampled tri-monthly (between February 2011 and September 2012) and analysed using the FiSAT software package. Extreme values estimated were L∞ = 35 cm (K= 0.2 year) for Boulengerochromis microlepis (Boulenger, 1899) and L∞ = 11 cm for Auronocranus dewindti and Callochromis pleurospilus (with K-values of 1.1 and 1 respectively). Extreme Φ'-values were 2.1 and 2.5 for C. pleurospilus and Limnotilapia dardennii respectively. Except for C. pleurospilus with M/K 2 noticed for other species indicated that species have short longevity. The high natural mortality rate M recorded could be attributed to the prohibited fishing practices in use and to the environment degradation. Moreover, the Z/K>2.9 recorded for all species and the Evalues calculated (E=F/Z) higher than 0.5, E50 and Emax (predicted maximum exploitation rate) indicated that fishes are overexploited.


Disaster Risk Management (DRM) introduces a paradigm change from mitigating impacts to preparedness. Communication becomes fundamental for a safe experience. Designing information has a decisive role in optimizing the experience. Following their principles, messages can be optimized for emergencies. Everyday information tools appear to be less effective during and after an emergency. Icons constitute a paradigm of visual communication, however, usually these are not evidenced in their performance. This paper presents the testing process of an open-access icon set for emergencies, specifically the preferences test. 283 responses evidence how participants associate representations with given concepts. Communication based on icons contributes to establishing preferences, constituting a support for the communication of risk. Integrating communication to DRM contributes to an effective articulation of risks. Results are discussed as three insights: (1) Familiarity, (2) Performance, (3) Knowledge for reducing risks. Information design contributes to facilitating such a process.


Objective: The object of the study was to evaluate the efficacy of Proprioceptive Focal Stimulation on Gait in middle—advanced Parkinson (PD) patients by a crossover, randomized, double Blind double dummy study using Equistasi®, a nano-technological device of the dimension of a plaster which generates High Frequency Vibration (FV). Background: The efficacy of Gait Analysis (GA) on evaluating gait modification on Parkinson's disease (PD) Patients is already well-known. Therefore, GA was recorded in a group of PD patients using Equistasi® device and its placebo. Methods: Forty PD patients on optimal therapy were enrolled in the study. Patients were randomly assigned to receive active or sham stimulation for 8 weeks and, following a wash-out period, switched to an additional 8-week period with the reverse intervention. GA was performed at baseline and at the end of both 8-weeks treatment periods Clinical state was monitored by MDUPDRS part III. Results: Active stimulation induced a significant improvement in Mean Velocity (Velocity), Stride Length (SL), Stance (STA), and Double Support (DST) percentage, both in left and right stride. The ANOVA analysis using H&Y stage as a factor, showed that DST and MDUPDRS III scores improved significantly more in the more severely affected subjects. Conclusions: The findings obtained in this randomized controlled study show the efficacy of mechanical focal vibration, as stimulation of the proprioceptive system, in PD and encourage further investigation. The effect of the device on more severe patients may open a new possibility to identify the most appropriate candidate for the management of gait disturbances and postural instability with FV delivered with Equistasi®.


Anthropomorphic breast phantoms mimic anatomy to evaluate the performance of clinical mammography and digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) systems. Our goal is to make a phantom that mimics clinically relevant appearance of a patient to allow for improved imaging systems and lesion detection. We previously presented a voxelized 3D printed physical phantom with breast tissue anatomy and a uniform chest wall for evaluating standard QC metrics. In the current study, metal ink resolution patterns were designed for the uniform chest wall spanning 1.5 to 10 lp/mm to cover the resolution range of mammography and DBT systems, and including test objects and fiducial markers for future automated processing. The previous phantom had a limited range of 36%-64% breast density using the commercial photopolymer inks TangoPlus and VeroWhite. Several doped materials were tested with the aim of increasing the contrast of the fibroglandular breast tissue in the previous phantom. We created custom-made photopolymers doped with several materials, including tungsten, to increase breast density, as well as iodine to simulate contrast-enhanced lesions. We also measured a new, commercial photopolymer ink, VeroPureWhite, which corresponds to 92% breast density. The tungsten-doped material allows for 33-100% breast density range in the phantom, more than double the density range in our previous phantom. To our phantom with normal anatomy, we also added lesion inserts in the form of 3D-printed mass lesions with varying sizes and contrasts and uniform, commercially produced iodine inserts to investigate interactions of lesions without and with contrast in breast tissue.


One promising approach to register liver volume acquisitions is based on the branching points of the vessel trees as anatomical landmarks inherently available in the liver. Automated tree matching algorithms were proposed to automatically find pair-wise correspondences between two vessel trees. However, to the best of our knowledge, none of the existing automatic methods are completely error free. After a review of current literature and methodologies on the topic, we propose an efficient interaction method that can be employed to support tree matching algorithms with important pre-selected correspondences or after an automatic matching to manually correct wrongly matched nodes. We used this method in combination with a promising automatic tree matching algorithm also presented in this work. The proposed method was evaluated by 4 participants and a CT dataset that we used to derive multiple artificial datasets.


Project AQUINpro, described in this paper, derives from a common theory of knowledge management and information technologies. The aim it to expand the theory to the water resources management field in the Czech Republic, a theory that is not currently being applied. Methods of knowledge management allow for much more space for thinking about the substance of water management problems beyond that of the application of partial artificial intelligence methods. The way of solving of water management problems will be possible by finding an effective, elegant and especially simpler way with the use of knowledge and expert systems. Knowledge and expert systems are very effective tools for working and exploiting important knowledge about the operations and control of complicated systems. Such systems are water management systems, which have specific dynamic properties and their real-time control proceeds often in conditions of uncertainty. Expert systems are above all much preferable for operation than conventional algorithms because they are able to imitate logical thinking of the human factor. For solving problems in water management it is necessary to use, what has been until now, a nonexistent methodology. Systems of knowledge management can be suitably adapted to be helpful for extreme situations and for training purposes. It is not always possible for operatives to be involved in solving problems of extreme flood situations in real time, which did happen in the recent past in the Czech Republic. Recent experience of managing flood situations in the year 2002 has highlighted the necessity to methodically develop the generally applicable, fundamental, operational and decision making rules behind extreme situations. It is necessary to do this as soon as possible, in order not to loose recently gained valuable knowledge and experience. Knowledge technologies have now been employed in a number of different areas and the results of these projects can be used as a theoretical background for implementing of knowledge management tools to the water management companies.


The three studies that open this issue of the International Journal of Electronic Commerce (IJEC) address different aspects of social commerce. In the first article, Joris Demmers, Willemijn M. van Dolen, and Jesse W.J. Weltevreden study how the users of social network sites (SNS) perceive the proactive messages they receive from firms. Say you have expressed dissatisfaction with the service you had received from the airline X, without explicitly naming X. Would you welcome a message from that airline? Would you consider a promotional message from airline Y flying the same route to be helpful customer service or an invasion of your privacy? Personal information is seen by some as a good in the individual's possession and thus subject to a cost–benefit analysis (known as privacy calculus) in the decision to disclose. Privacy is seen by others and by some national and international regulatory systems as a human right, not to be bargained away. Here, the authors apply the privacy-calculus lens in their theoretical development and empirical study. Their empirics show that firms are well-advised to exercise restraint in proactively messaging SNS users who do not directly complain about or compliment them. Location-based social networks (LBSN) leverage information about users' location for a variety of advantages. Mutual discovery by a business and a potential customer in its vicinity can lead to a transaction or even a longerterm relationship. A business in a nonprime location could notionally find the promotion on an LBSN to be a partial equalizer with respect to easy-tonotice competitors in an advantageous location. What is the reality? Ke Zhang, Konstantinos Pelechrinis, and Theodoros Lappas statistically analyze a large Foursquare data set to determine the effectiveness of LBSN promotions. They find it wanting, particularly in the longer term. Helpfully, the authors deploy the data to propose and validate a novel model that predicts the effectiveness of a promotion. Clearly, this study has much to offer to a firm that is apportioning its advertising budget and planning a campaign. Abrar Al-Hasan studies social stock picking, using data collected from one of the largest sites dedicated to this objective. These SNS help investors follow perceived gurus, making elaborate information about the gurus' trading history available to their followers. The author investigates the antecedents of salutary investment performance through the lens of the social learning theory. Two types of social learning are found to lead to opposite performance results. The work contributes to our knowledge of co-creation, FinTech, and social learning. The advent of e-commerce has placed the concept of business models in the center of business action and research attention. In fact, pivoting, expanding, and contracting business models have moved to the center of the competitive arena of e-commerce. In the next article, Paul BeynonDavies shows how thinking about these models as patterns enables us to deploy the design theory to help conceptualize, understand, and build business models. The approach offered by the author goes further, to help us partially reuse and benchmark them. The pattern-comics visualization


Cloud Computing (CC), as defned by national Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), is a new technology model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources such as networks, servers, storage, applications, and services that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service-provider interaction. CC is a fast growing field; yet, there are major concerns regarding the detection of security threats, which in turn have urged experts to explore solutions to improve its security performance through conventional approaches, such as, Intrusion Detection System (IDS). In the literature, there are two most successful current IDS tools that are used worldwide: Snort and Suricata; however, these tools are not flexible to the uncertainty of intrusions. The aim of this study is to explore novel approaches to uplift the CC security performance using Type-1 fuzzy logic (T1FL) technique with IDS when compared to IDS alone. All experiments in this thesis were performed within a virtual cloud that was built within an experimental environment. By combining fuzzy logic technique (FL System) with IDSs, namely SnortIDS and SuricataIDS, SnortIDS and SuricataIDS for detection systems were used twice (with and without FL) to create four detection systems (FL-SnortIDS, FL-SuricataIDS, SnortIDS, and SuricataIDS) using Intrusion Detection Evaluation Dataset (namely ISCX). ISCX comprised two types of traffic (normal and threats); the latter was classified into four classes including Denial of Service, User-to-Root, Root-to-Local, and Probing. Sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, false alarms and detection rate were compared among the four detection systems. Then, Fuzzy Intrusion Detection System model was designed (namely FIDSCC) in CC based on the results of the aforementioned four detection systems. The FIDSCC model comprised of two individual systems pre-and-post threat detecting systems (pre-TDS and post-TDS). The pre-TDS was designed based on the number of threats in the aforementioned classes to assess the detection rate (DR). Based on the output of this DR and false positives of the four detection systems, the post-TDS was designed in order to assess CC security performance. To assure the validity of the results, classifier algorithms (CAs) were introduced to each of the four detection systems and four threat classes for further comparison. The classifier algorithms were OneR, Naive Bayes, Decision Tree (DT), and K-nearest neighbour. The comparison was made based on specific measures including accuracy, incorrect classified instances, mean absolute error, false positive rate, precision, recall, and ROC area. The empirical results showed that FL-SnortIDS was superior to FL-SuricataIDS, SnortIDS, and SuricataIDS in terms of sensitivity. However, insignificant difference was found in specificity, false alarms and accuracy among the four detection systems. Furthermore, among the four CAs, the combination of FL-SnortIDS and DT was shown to be the best detection method. The results of these studies showed that FIDSCC model can provide a better alternative to detecting threats and reducing the false positive rates more than the other conventional approaches.


Objective This study aimed at studying the effects of shiftwork on health in nurses in Benha University Hospitals. Background Approximately one-fourth of hospital workers work in shift system. Shiftwork stress has been linked to negative effects on health. However, the studies on shiftwork effects are limited. Patient and methods This cross-sectional study targeted all nurses in Benha University Hospitals, Qualubeyia, Egypt, over the period from beginning of January 2014 to end of December 2014. The nurses completed Standard Shiftwork Index questionnaire and had a physical examination, including measurement of random blood sugar level, blood pressure for cardiovascular condition, and vital signs, especially pulse to assess arrhythmias, body weight, height, and BMI for obesity. Results The study recruited 803 nurses, and all of them were females; 43% aged more than 40 years, with a mean duration in shiftwork of 18.99 years. Most nurses were married. The surgical departments' nurses had significant higher BMI, digestive, and languidiness scores than medical departments' nurses. Both diastolic blood pressure and systolic blood pressure were higher in married nurses who had dependent households. Nurses who worked up to 40 h/week in night and afternoon shifts had a significantly higher sleep disturbance score. Cardiovascular score was significantly higher among nurses aged of at least 40 years, and who worked in shift system for 20–40 years; there were significant positive correlations between diastolic blood pressure and number of households and between cardiovascular problems and age and work duration in the shift system. Conclusion Shiftwork was associated with health hazards, which mandated guidelines to protect nurses from the negative effect of shiftwork.


I discuss the production mechanism of hidden-flavored hadrons at high energy. Using $e^+e^-$ collisions and light-meson pair production in high energy exclusive processes, I demonstrate that hidden quark pairs do not necessarily participate in short-distance hard scattering. Implications are then explored in a few examples. Finally, I discuss the production mechanism of $X(3872)$ in hadron collisions, where some misunderstandings have arisen in the literature.


While scalability and growth are key concerns for mainstream, venture-backed digital platforms, local and location-oriented collaborative economies are diverse in their approaches to evolving and achieving social change. Their aims and tactics differ when it comes to broadening their activities across contexts, spreading their concept, or seeking to make a bigger impact by promoting co-operation. This paper draws on three pairs of European, community-centred initiatives which reveal alternative views on scale, growth, and impact. We argue that proliferation – a concept that emphasises how something gets started and then travels in perhaps unexpected ways – offers an alternative to scaling , which we understand as the use of digital networks in a monocultural way to capture an ever-growing number of participants. Considering proliferation is, thus, a way to reorient and enrich discussions on impact, ambitions, modes of organising, and the use of collaborative technologies. In illustrating how these aspects relate in processes of proliferation , we offer CSCW an alternative vision of technology use and development that can help us make sense of the impact of sharing and collaborative economies, and design socio-technical infrastructures to support their flourishing.


Understanding the behaviour of nuclear fuel materials in relation to the different thermal loads to which they can be subjected, i.e. from normal operation through severe conditions, is of critical importance in the nuclear field. Experimental studies can be performed with dedicated integral experiments conducted in-pile (i.e. in Materials Testing Reactor) with the corresponding cost and constraints, or at the laboratory scale with annealing tests that can produce representative thermal conditions. In this context we are developing an experimental platform to perform annealing tests on irradiated nuclear fuel samples involving very high temperatures (up to 3000°C), with control of radial and axial thermal gradients and temporal dynamics, coupled with on line analysis of gas and fission product releases, microstructure evolution and fuel fragmentation kinetics. This experiment is based on a high power laser (1.5 kW) used to generate heat on the sample, implemented in an experimental chamber with controlled atmosphere, associated with different diagnostics. Based on the spatial beam profile and temporal power function of the laser, such a system allows producing complex spatiotemporal temperature gradients, relevant for addressing different research needs. It provides access to extreme thermal conditions that are very difficult to reach with other means. Particularly, one of the objectives of this work is to investigate conditions of Reactivity Initiated Accident (RIA).


Idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH) is a complex disease associated with vascular remodeling and a proliferative disorder in pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells (PASMCs) that has been variably described as having neoplastic features. To decode the phenotype of PASMCs in IPAH, PASMCs from explanted lungs of patients with IPAH (IPAH-PASMCs) and from controls (C-PASMCs) were cultured. The IPAH-PASMCs grew faster than the controls; however, both growth curves plateaued, suggesting contact inhibition in IPAH cells. No proliferation was seen without stimulation with exogenous growth factors, suggesting that IPAH cells are incapable of self-sufficient growth. IPAH-PASMCs were more resistant to apoptosis than C-PASMCs, consistent with the increase in the Bcl2/Bax ratio. As cell replication is governed by telomere length, these parameters were assessed jointly. Compared to C-PASMCs, IPAH-PASMCs had longer telomeres, but a limited replicative capacity. Additionally, it was noted that IPAH-PASMCs had a shift in energy production from mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation to aerobic glycolysis. As DNA damage and genomic instability are strongly implicated in IPAH development a comparative genomic hybridization was performed on genomic DNA from PASMCs which showed multiple break-points unaffected by IPAH severity. Activation of DNA damage/repair factors (γH2AX, p53, and GADD45) in response to cisplatin was measured. All proteins showed lower phosphorylation in IPAH samples than in controls, suggesting that the cells were resistant to DNA damage. Despite the cancer-like processes that are associated with end-stage IPAH-PASMCs, we identified no evidence of self-sufficient proliferation in these cells—the defining feature of neoplasia.


In most developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, prices received by fanners are not optimal in the sense that they do not optimize government revenues. In this paper a dynamic model for optimal pricing of primary commodities is developed. The model and results demonstrate that optimal prices depend on marginal cost of the commodity stock, the exporting country's supply elasticity, the importing country's demand elasticity, the social rate of time discount. Therefore when the model is cast in a static framework, or the foreign elasticity of demand is not accounted for, the result could be biased.


CONTEXT
The efficacy of counseling to prevent infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) has not been definitively shown.

OBJECTIVE
To compare the effects of 2 interactive HIV/STD counseling interventions with didactic prevention messages typical of current practice.

DESIGN
Multicenter randomized controlled trial (Project RESPECT), with participants assigned to 1 of 3 individual face-to-face interventions.

SETTING
Five public STD clinics (Baltimore, Md; Denver, Colo; Long Beach, Calif; Newark, NJ; and San Francisco, Calif) between July 1993 and September 1996.

PARTICIPANTS
A total of 5758 heterosexual, HIV-negative patients aged 14 years or older who came for STD examinations.

INTERVENTIONS
Arm 1 received enhanced counseling, 4 interactive theory-based sessions. Arm 2 received brief counseling, 2 interactive risk-reduction sessions. Arms 3 and 4 each received 2 brief didactic messages typical of current care. Arms 1, 2, and 3 were actively followed up after enrollment with questionnaires at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months and STD tests at 6 and 12 months. An intent-to-treat analysis was used to compare interventions.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Self-reported condom use and new diagnoses of STDs (gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, HIV) defined by laboratory tests.

RESULTS
At the 3- and 6-month follow-up visits, self-reported 100% condom use was higher (P<.05) in both the enhanced counseling and brief counseling arms compared with participants in the didactic messages arm. Through the 6-month interval, 30% fewer participants had new STDs in both the enhanced counseling (7.2%; P= .002) and brief counseling (7.3%; P= .005) arms compared with those in the didactic messages arm (10.4%). Through the 12-month study, 20% fewer participants in each counseling intervention had new STDs compared with those in the didactic messages arm (P = .008). Consistently at each of the 5 study sites, STD incidence was lower in the counseling intervention arms than in the didactic messages intervention arm. Reduction of STD was similar for men and women and greater for adolescents and persons with an STD diagnosed at enrollment.

CONCLUSIONS
Short counseling interventions using personalized risk reduction plans can increase condom use and prevent new STDs. Effective counseling can be conducted even in busy public clinics.


The lithology and succession of the component beds of the formations are described and the topographic expression of prominent members noted. Localities where individual members and contacts are typically exposed are mentioned. The gravels and conglomerates of the several formations and zones are described. A caliche mantle is present, being thickest southwest of the town of Goliad. Chalcedony, forming knobs in the Lagarto outcrop area, is believed to have had its source in the Catahoula tuff. Chalcedony may have formed where underground water moved up fault planes to the surface, but it is not believed to indicate favorable structure for oil and gas production.