This study evaluates the ability of the regional high‐resolution version of the Australian Community Climate and Earth‐System Simulator (ACCESS‐A) model (horizontal resolution of 12 km, 50 height levels with a 37.5 km top) to simulate statistical rainfall properties during three monsoon seasons using the Darwin C‐band polarimetric (CPOL) radar observation as a reference. The comparison consists of characteristics of precipitation, including the total‐domain accumulated daily rainfall, the daily rain intensity and frequency and the probability distribution function of hourly rain rate. These characteristics are then binned using five large‐scale atmospheric regimes that represent the main weather states in that region to assess the ability of the model to reproduce the variability of the statistical rainfall properties as a function of these defined regimes. The main results are that although the model reproduces the accumulated daily rainfall amount reasonably well, albeit tending to slightly overestimate it, the mean rain rate is too weak, compensated by too large a rain frequency of occurrence. In terms of intensity the model tends to perform worse in the dry regimes but improves in the wet regimes, especially during the 'Deep Westerly' regime, when most of the monsoonal precipitation is produced. Probability distribution functions of rain rates reveal that although there are small differences amongst regimes, marked discrepancies are found between model and observations. The ACCESS‐A overestimates light rain rates, underestimates moderate to heavy rain rates and produces spurious very heavy rain rates that are not observed at all by the radar. The evaluation of the diurnal cycle of rainfall properties also reveals a general underestimate of rain rates, compensated by an overestimated rain frequency over the whole cycle, resulting in an overestimated amplitude and a wrong timing of the diurnal cycle. In all regimes, the overestimation of total‐domain daily rainfall and rain frequency is found to be due to an overestimation of low rain rates produced by the ACCESS‐A convective scheme, while the underestimation of mean rain rate is due to an underestimate of high rain rates and high rain rates frequency by the ACCESS‐A convective scheme.


An approach based on Bayesian framework and relevance feedback is proposed to improve the accuracy of indoor-outdoor image classification. In the system, knowledge from low-level features and spatial properties are integrated in Bayesian framework, and a relevance feedback method is implemented to specify the optimal weights of sub-blocks of images. The system provides the ability to utilize the local and spatial properties to classify new images. Performance testing of the algorithm is conducted using a database of real consumer photos. Experimental results over more than 1500 images show that high accuracy could be obtained using the spatial properties.


When dealing with dynamic, untrusted content, such as on the Web, software behavior must be sandboxed, typically through use of a language like JavaScript. However, even for such specially-designed languages, it is difficult to ensure the safety of highly-optimized, dynamic language runtimes which, for efficiency, rely on advanced techniques such as Just-In-Time (JIT) compilation, large libraries of native-code support routines, and intricate mechanisms for multi-threading and garbage collection. Each new runtime provides a new potential attack surface and this security risk raises a barrier to the adoption of new languages for creating untrusted content.
 Removing this limitation, this paper introduces general mechanisms for safely and efficiently sandboxing software, such as dynamic language runtimes, that make use of advanced, low-level techniques like runtime code modification. Our language-independent sandboxing builds on Software-based Fault Isolation (SFI), a traditionally static technique. We provide a more flexible form of SFI by adding new constraints and mechanisms that allow safety to be guaranteed despite runtime code modifications.
 We have added our extensions to both the x86-32 and x86-64 variants of a production-quality, SFI-based sandboxing platform; on those two architectures SFI mechanisms face different challenges. We have also ported two representative language platforms to our extended sandbox: the Mono common language runtime and the V8 JavaScript engine. In detailed evaluations, we find that sandboxing slowdown varies between different benchmarks, languages, and hardware platforms. Overheads are generally moderate and they are close to zero for some important benchmark/platform combinations.


ABSTRACT Background: Post-traumatic stress disorder affects 9% of individuals across their lifetime and increases nearly fourfold to 35% in Canadian public safety personnel (PSP). On-the-job experiences of PSP frequently meet criteria for traumatic events, making these individuals highly vulnerable to exposures of trauma and the negative consequences of PTSD. Few studies have reported on the clinical characteristics of Canadian samples of PSP and even fewer have examined the dissociative subtype of PTSD, which is associated with more severe, chronic traumatic experiences, and worse outcomes. Objective: This study aimed to characterize dissociative symptoms, PTSD symptom severity, and other clinical variables among Canadian PSP with presumptive PTSD. Methods: We sampled current and past PSP in Canada from both inpatient and outpatient populations (N = 50) that were enrolled in a psychological intervention. Only baseline testing data (prior to any intervention) were analysed in this study, such as PTSD symptom severity, dissociative symptoms, emotion dysregulation, and functional impairment. Results: In our sample, 24.4% self-reported elevated levels of dissociation, specifically symptoms of depersonalization and derealization. Depersonalization and derealization symptoms were associated with more severe PTSD symptoms, greater emotion dysregulation, and functional impairment. Conclusions: Nearly a quarter of this sample of Canadian PSP reported experiencing elevated levels of PTSD-related dissociation (depersonalization and derealization). These high levels of depersonalization and derealization were consistently positively associated with greater illness severity across clinical measures. It is imperative that dissociative symptoms be better recognized in patient populations that are exposed to chronic traumatic events such as PSP, so that treatment interventions can be designed to target a more severe illness presentation. HIGHLIGHTS 24.4% of traumatized Canadian public safety personnel reported elevated levels of depersonalization and derealization, which was associated with a severe illness profile characterized by greater trauma symptoms, emotional dysregulation, and difficulty with life tasks.


An 85-year old lady originally from Gujurat presented to the emergency department with sudden onset left sided weakness and slurred speech. Stroke was suspected. Computed tomography (CT) of the head showed bilateral multiple cortical and subcortical hypodense lesions; magnetic resonance imaging revealed that these lesions were ring enhancing with oedema. Lumbar puncture found an opening pressure of 22cm H2O, 98% lymphocytes (60x106/L) in the cerebrospinal fluid with a normal glucose (6.1mg/L) and high protein (0.66 mg/L). Cerebrospinal fluid culture, PCR and cytology were all negative. The patient was started on empirical therapy for tuberculous meningitis. A subsequent CT chest, abdomen and pelvis however did not find any other significant pathology. Unfortunately, soon after her investigations, the woman rapidly deteriorated. A joint medical decision was made to shift focus of treatment to palliative care. After death, post-mortem found multiple irregular haemorrhagic solid lesions with dark brown edges. Histopathology confirmed extensive areas of necrosis, within which there were multiple amoebic trophozoites and cysts. A diagnosis of amoebic (it may be) meningo-encephalitis was made. These were thought to be free-living amoebae. Free-living amoebae are ubiquitous to the environment, and exposure is common. The incidence of amoebic encephalitis however is rare and usually occurs in immunocompromised patients. Portal of entry, especially in cases where the cerebrospinal fluid protein is only mildly raised or normal, is thought to be through the nose or eyes (for example, Acanthamoeba keratitis from contact lenses). Clinicians should consider this as a differential diagnosis for any patient with multiple brain abscesses.


Gymnosperms are the naked seed plants without fruits .They are generally evergreen  trees with needles and beautiful  woody cones on them .seeds are present on the ovuliferous scales  ,the sizes and the shapes of the ouvuliferous scales are of the taxonomic values for the several species of the genera .coniferales order of the gymnosperms are evergreen trees with commercial values  , they are lorches ,cedars ,pines ,hemlocks .the plants has two kinds of the branches ,these are the long branches and the short spurs . Short spurs are filled with the needles and bark. In this review article we are working on the  some of the aspects of the ,one of the genus entitled as the Pseudolarix , this genus is monotypic  having one species entitled as the Pseudolarix amabilis .commonly it is known as the Chinese golden lorches .The plant is valuable commercially and wood is used for the variety of the purposes , IUCN  version categories the genus as endangered on the basis of the area of the occupancy (AOO)and the area of the extents(AOE)  in the china .The genus is valuable commercially as well as medicinally ,so it requires the protection and the conservation .


The adhesion degradation of rubber/galvanized-steel direct bonding system was accelerated by moisture. The route that moisture reached the rubber/galvanized-steel interface through, and improvement of stability of the adhesion system was studied.Following results were obtained. (1) The moisture does not penetrate through the rubber/metal interface, but through the rubber bulk phase. (2) Of the rubber components, emulsion-polymerized SBR shows the highest amount of moisture adsorption. So compounding solution-polymerized rubber as main material instead of emulsion-polymerized rubber, the adhesion stability under high moisture condition was remarkably improved.


Asian countries contribute nearly 90 per cent to global production of culture fisheries. Diversification of species is not happening in fish culture because of the high value shrimp commands in the export market. Shrimp farming is on the increase in all the major shrimp-producing Asian countries. Higher the growth in shrimp production, higher is the instability in production due to production risks associated with ecosystem complexities and disease incidences. Most of the shrimp-producing countries have been moving towards specialization of shrimp production for export because of the high price that the shrimp asserts in the international market. A comparison between the Asian countries for the period 1976-2002 has revealed that Malaysia has maintained low growth and low instability and higher diversification, and Bangladesh and Vietnam have diversified in fish exports. In a country-level comparison, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines have shown moderate growth in production and export of shrimp. The instability associated with their shrimp production has also been moderate. Diversification in fish production as well as exports has been suggested for assured income to farmers and the country. It has been pointed that replacing, supplementing or rotating the shrimp farming with culture of other high-value fish species like Asian sea bass (Lates calcarifer), grouper (Epinephelus spp), mullets (Mugil spp) and milk fish (Chanos spp) culture may ease the risks in mono-cropping of shrimp.


With the progression of structural genomics projects, comparative modeling remains an increasingly important method of choice to obtain 3D structure of proteins. It helps to bridge the gap between the available sequence and structure information by providing reliable and accurate protein models. Comparative modeling based on more than 30% sequence identity is now approaching its natural template-based limits and further improvements require the development of effective refinement techniques capable of driving models toward native structure. For difficult targets, for which the most significant progress in recent years has been observed, optimal template selection and alignment accuracy are still the major problems. The past year has seen a maturation of molecular modeling, with an increasing number of comparative studies between established methods becoming possible, together with an explosion of new works especially in the areas of combinatorial chemistry and molecular diversity. To achieve this, knowledge about three-dimensional protein structures is crucial for the understanding of their functional mechanisms, and for a rational drug design. This review described recent progress in molecular modeling methodology.


Repetitive transient ischemic depolarizations (IDs) during focal cerebral ischemia are thought to contribute to ischemic damage.Isoflurane and pentobarbital reduce injury (versus the nonanesthetized state) after focal cerebral ischemia. The mechanism by which these drugs reduce injury is not known. This protective effect might be mediated by a reduction in the number of IDs. We measured the frequency of IDs during focal cerebral ischemia in animals anesthetized with isoflurane or pentobarbital and compared it with that in N2 O/fentanyl anesthetized animals and in animals in which the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist MK801 (dizocilpine) was given. Focal cerebral ischemia was induced by the occlusion of the middle cerebral artery for a period of 2 h. Cortical infarct volumes were determined after 3 h of reperfusion by image analysis of 2,3,5-triphenyl tetrazolium-stained coronal brain sections. The infarct volume was significantly greater in the N2 O/fentanyl group than in the other three groups. Infarct volumes in the isoflurane, pentobarbital, and MK801 groups were similar. The frequency of IDs was significantly greater in the N2 O/fentanyl group than in the other three groups, and was the least in the MK801 group. There was a direct correlation between the number of IDs and the volume of tissue injury. The data indicate that the protective effect of isoflurane and pentobarbital might, in part, be determined by their ability to reduce IDs during focal ischemia. However, the observation that the infarct volume was similar in the MK801, isoflurane, and pentobarbital groups, despite a greater frequency of IDs in the latter two groups, suggests that mechanisms other than a simple reduction in the number of IDs probably also play a role in anesthetic-mediated cerebral protection. Implications: Transient ischemic depolarizations during focal ischemia contribute to brain injury. Both isoflurane and pentobarbital reduced the frequency of these depolarizations. Isoflurane- and pentobarbital-mediated reduction in the frequency of depolarizations might, in part, mediate the previously documented neuroprotective effect of these drugs. (Anesth Analg 1998;86:773-80)


Waste water from enzymatic biodiesel technology (contained glycerol 5%) is treated as following: Firstly, waste water is filtered with a gauze, add KOH to PH=7~8, and filter to remove salt soap. Secondly, the processed liquid distil at 50°C in Rotary Evaporator vacuum to remove most of water and methanol, then concentrated solution use plinthic flocculants (mass ratio of 100:1), stirring at 70°C to eliminate colloid. Finally, at 180°C, 0.8 kPa to vacuum distil to collect glycerol of purity up to 90.43%.The glycerol react with acetic acid to get glycerol triacetate with phosphotungstic acid catalyst, toluene as water-carrying agent. Thus comes out the yield of more than 90% glycerol triacetate in 6 hours.


Third-order intermodulation in capacitively coupled microelectromechanical filters is analyzed. Parallel-plate transducers are assumed and, in addition to the capacitive nonlinearities, also the usually much weaker second- and third-order mechanical resonator nonlinearities are taken into account. Closed-form expressions for the output signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) and input intercept point are derived. The analytical results are verified in experiments and in numerical harmonic-balance simulations. It is shown that intermodulation as a function of frequency is asymmetric with respect to the passband. The results are valuable in designing micromechanical filters, for example, for communication applications.


Here we report the discovery of very high energy (> 100GeV) γ-ray emission from the radio emitting X-ray binary LS I +61 303 with the Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) telescope. This high energy emission has been found to be variable, detected 4 days after the periastron passage and lasting for several days. The data have been taken along different orbital cycles, and the fact that the detections occur at similar orbital phases, suggests that the emission is periodic. Two different scenarios have been involved to explain this high energy emission: the microquasar scenario where the γ-rays are produced in a radioemitting jet; or the pulsar binary scenario, where they are produced in the shock which is generated by the interaction of a pulsar wind and the wind of the massive companion.


This paper presents a two-stage method to perform trajectory optimisation in multimodal dynamical systems with unknown nonlinear stochastic transition dynamics. The method finds trajectories that remain in a preferred dynamics mode where possible and in regions of the transition dynamics model that have been observed and can be predicted confidently. The first stage leverages a Mixture of Gaussian Process Experts method to learn a predictive dynamics model from historical data. Importantly, this model learns a gating function that indicates the probability of being in a particular dynamics mode at a given state location. This gating function acts as a coordinate map for a latent Riemannian manifold on which shortest trajectories are solutions to our trajectory optimisation problem. Based on this intuition, the second stage formulates a geometric cost function, which it then implicitly minimises by projecting the trajectory optimisation onto the second-order geodesic ODE; a classic result of Riemannian geometry. A set of collocation constraints are derived that ensure trajectories are solutions to this ODE, implicitly solving the trajectory optimisation problem.


This research evaluated the impact of a common modification to Angoff standard-setting exercises: the provision of examinee performance data. Data from 18 independent standard-setting panels across three different medical licensing examinations were examined to investigate whether and how the provision of performance information impacted judgments and the resulting cut scores. Results varied by panel but in general indicated that both the variability among the panelists and the resulting cut scores were affected by the data. After the review of performance data, panelist variability generally decreased. In addition, for all panels and examinations pre- and post-data cut scores were significantly different. Investigation of the practical significance of the findings indicated that nontrivial fail rate changes were associated with the cut score changes for a majority of standard-setting exercises. This study is the first to provide a large-scale, systematic evaluation of the impact of a common standard setting practice, and the results can provide practitioners with insight into how the practice influences panelist variability and resulting cut scores.


Demographic analysis is on the basis of every city plan. It is often regarded as a technical and indisputable tool to inform policy making. In a strongly contested political environment, information on population is crucial to set priorities and define goals. However, the frequently misinterpretation, or overinterpretation, of demographic information, might also support inadequate public policy design. The increased interest on ageing in the urban context has already resulted in various initiatives all-over the world. The idea of an unsustainable "elderly boom" is a powerful narrative that is frequently used to argue for the need of improved policies for older persons. The article argues that city planners and urbanists inadequate use of demographic assessment of ageing might generate policies that can ultimately work against the interests of the older persons. I use the city of Oslo as an example of the varieties of approaches that can be used to assess ageing on a specific population. Contrary to the general assumption that Oslo will face an "elderly boom", the study shows that the city's ageing process today is less intense than the observed in the past. A particular attention is paid to the varieties of demographic trends observed within Oslo's different scales.


Nikos Kazantzakis (1885-1957) was one of the truly great poet/novelists of the twentieth century. Readers, critics, and scholars continue to plumb the depths and breadth of Kazantzakis's insight into and understanding of life in all its glory and mystery. In that endeavor, Lewis Owens herein sheds yet more light. This is a detailed, even technical, but never boring analysis of Kazantzakis writings, based primarily upon Owen's research at Kazantzakis's personal library in Iraklion, Crete. Owens highlights how Kazantzakis was profoundly influenced by the "creative evolution" of Henri Bergson, and how Bergson's creative evolution was rooted in a notion of God postulated by the mystic Jacob Boehme. Owens rejects interpretations that label Kazantzakis a nihilist and pessimist, and claims that Kazantzakis's political and existential thought is dominated rather by a dialectic of destruction and creation, which sees destruction as a necessary prerequisite for renewed creative activity. Kazantzakis believed that in his own time it was the individual's responsibility to become a revolutionary communist, not because communism was a desired goal, an end in itself, but because only after communism had become a spent force could a new dawn of creativity emerge. Perhaps even Kazantzakis knew more than he, from his vantage, could understand?


Drawing on the practice-turn in constructivism and in international relations (IR) theory more generally, we argue that a particular approach to managing stability and change is inherent in, and indeed characteristic of, legality and the rule of law in international as in domestic law. Our "interactional law" framework places particular emphasis on what we call the "practice of legality". This concept is central to understanding how law can both enable and constrain state actions, and why international law is a distinctive language of justification and contestation. In turn, the focus on stability and change is helpful because it directly confronts some of the persistent doubts and assumptions about international law, in particular in relation to international politics. Our work is animated by the intuition that the dominant views in IR and international law scholarship underestimate international law's capacity to mediate stability and change, in part because they focus on the surface of law (treaties, statutes and so on) and external factors (interests, enforcement). They neglect the deeper structure of what makes norms "law", and the distinctive practices that account for both its relative stability and its capacity for change.


The story of a woman pouring oil on Jesus' feet or head is attested in all four canonical gospels. While some see the Lukan version pointing to an event that is different from the `Bethany' anointing found in the other three gospels, I argue that all four accounts are based on the same event. The differences in Luke's narrative, instead, can be accounted for by seeing the pouring of oil in Luke as symbol of a sacrificial offering rather than an anointing. Understanding this symbolic act as an offering/sacrifice fits Luke's theme of forgiveness, which is evident in this passage and many others. Moreover, it shows how Luke's gospel moves his readers from a Jewish, male, temple-based religion at the beginning of Jesus' ministry to a Jewish and Gentile, male and female, Spirit-based religion that culminates at Pentecost. Such a reading may also provide clues about the relationships among the Spirit, forgiveness and worship in Luke's gospel.


Solar energy is one of the most important sources among renewables to reach the global energy requirements without the concomitant production of greenhouses gases. Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) systems have been recognized as a promising technology thanks to the easy integration with Thermal Energy Storage (TES) devices, which allow to overcome the intrinsic unsteady nature of the solar energy. Gas–solid Fluidized Bed (FB) systems can play a key role when employed as solar receiver/reactor: the high thermal conductivity and diffusivity in such reactors can help in absorbing the concentrated solar energy ensuring low heat losses and in equalizing the heat received avoiding thermo mechanical stresses to both reactor walls and reactive materials.
The work performed in this PhD Thesis was devoted to the investigation of gas–solid FBs as solar receiver/reactor in CSP systems. In particular, in the present PhD Thesis an integration between solar energy and conventional fossil fuels sources has been proposed. An integrated scheme of a continuous Calcium Looping (CaL) process for CO2 capture from combustion flue gases of a power plant, based on FB technology and sustained by a CSP, was developed. Storage of the excess incident solar power during the daytime as calcined sorbent, which is eventually utilized in the CaL loop during the nighttime, was proposed to overcome the inherently unsteadiness of CSP systems. The potentialities of a similar integrated scheme were assessed by means of model computations to estimate the main features, performance, storage and energy requirements of the process. Model computations of a base case suggested that in order to couple a CSP with a 100 MWth combustion plant, the use of two storage vessels of nearly 2000 m3 is required, together with the building of an heliostat field of 0.26 sqkm. The heat recovery in the carbonator is of crucial importance and allows to largely increase the overall thermal throughput of the power plant. It was also highlighted that larger inlet Ca/C molar ratio could result into a higher CO2 capture efficiency but at the expense of a larger energy requirement for the heliostat field.
In order to study the practical feasibility of the process, directly irradiated FB systems were considered, as the direct heating configuration permits to obtain the high operating temperatures required to perform the calcination reaction. Initial studies were targeted at the comprehension of the heat transfer phenomena in directly irradiated FBs, with the aim of establishing the efficiency of the solar FB receiver. Experimental investigations were performed by mapping through a thermal infrared camera the surface of a fluidized bed subjected to a concentrated solar simulated radiation. Experimental results suggested that collection of incident radiation changes from a surface-receiver to a volumetric receiver paradigm as the gas superficial velocity is increased from fixed to bubbling fluidized bed conditions: this also results in a significant reduction of peak temperature and temperature fluctuations at the focal point of the receiver. A strong reduction of bed surface temperature has been obtained by exploring an uneven fluidization strategy and, in turn, by tailoring the hydrodynamics of the bed through injecting a chains of bubbles from a nozzle located in the proximity of the radiation focal point. A compartmental heat transfer model which provides a simple, though accurate, equation for predicting in-bed dispersion of radiative power and extent of temperature non-uniformity was also developed.
Finally, a directly irradiated gas–solid FB reactor suitable for the investigation of thermochemical heat storage processes has been designed and operated to study the solar CaL process. Several calcination carbonation reactions were performed on an Italian Ca based sorbent (Massicci), and its CO2 capture capacity was evaluated over repeated cycling. The operation of the directly irradiated FB reactor resulted into a continuous fluctuation of the bed surface temperature, with a mean over temperature value of over 100 °C. The CO2 capture capacity of the investigated limestone showed a first initial decreasing trend followed by a stabilization at lower values, with a residual CO2 capture capacity of about 6%. According to the obtained results, the solar CaL process appears to be a practicable way toward the integration of conventional fossil fuels and energy sources, with the aim of both taking advantage of the solar energy and reducing CO2 emissions.


The study was on comparative analysis of crayfish marketing in some selected markets of Akwa Ibom and Abia states of Nigeria. It specifically looked at market integration, costs and return, marketing margin, marketing efficiency and factors influencing marketing efficiency in both states. Data were collected from 60 respondents (30 from each state). Data analyses were carried out with the use of such statistical tools like bivirate analysis, efficiency ratio, marketing margin and regression analysis. The results show that selling and purchasing prices had weak correlation between the markets in Akwa Ibom and Abia states, implying low level of market integration. Costs and return analysis showed a net return of N 16, 816.42 and N 35, 734, 50 for Akwa Ibom and Abia states respectively. This implies that crayfish marketing is more profitable in Abia state. Marketing margin in Akwa Ibom and Abia state was 9.58 and 15.01 respectively, while the marketing efficiency was 8.29 and 13.31 respectively in the states. The results call for policies aimed at provision of infrastructural facilities to reduce transportation cost and marketers encouraged to increase the level of crayfish marketing because it is lucrative, thereby meeting up with the increasing demand for protein. Keywords : Comparative Analysis, Crayfish, Marketing, Market Integration


This paper develops a decomposition algorithm by which a market economy with many households may be solved through the computation of equilibria for a sequence of representative agent economies. The paper examines local and global convergence properties of the sequential recalibration (SR) algorithm. The SR algorithm is then demonstrated to efficiently solve Auerbach–Kotlikoff OLG models with a large number of heterogeneous households. We approximate equilibria in OLG models by solving a sequence of related Ramsey optimal growth problems. This approach can provide improvements in both efficiency and robustness as compared with integrated complementarity-based solution methods.


We investigate the behavior of the frustrated J1-J2 Ising model on a square lattice under the influence of random dilution and spatial anisotropies. Spinless impurities generate a random-field type disorder for the spin-density wave (stripe) order parameter. These random fields destroy the long-range stripe order in the case of spatially isotropic interactions. Combining symmetry arguments, percolation theory and large-scale Monte Carlo simulations, we demonstrate that arbitrarily weak spatial interaction anisotropies restore the stripe phase. More specifically, the transition temperature Tc into the stripe phase depends on the interaction anisotropy ∆J via Tc ∼ 1/| ln(∆J)| for small ∆J . This logarithmic dependence implies that very weak anisotropies are sufficient to restore the transition temperature to values comparable to that of the undiluted system. We analyze the critical behavior of the emerging transition and find it to belong to the disordered two-dimensional Ising universality class, which features the clean Ising critical exponents and universal logarithmic corrections. We also discuss the generality of our results and their consequences for experiments.


One of the application areas for printed electronics is producing antennas on flexible substrates. Their mechanical and electrical parameters depend on their design and type of applied materials. Antennas in the ultra-high-frequency (UHF) range, printed on various substrates with polymer materials containing fillers such as silver flakes, silver nanopowder, carbon nanotubes and pastes based on conductive polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:-PSS) are compared. In addition, commercial silver pastes are investigated. Printing processes using these materials and flexible substrates are discussed. The microstructures and electrical parameters of printed layers, as well as properties of performed antennas are described. The best results are exhibited silver antennas that show parameters comparable with their copper equivalents.


AIM
There is a lack of longitudinal studies of buprenorphine dependence, an important opioid dependence in several countries. We investigated the course and outcome of buprenorphine dependence in an Indian clinic-attending cohort.

DESIGN
Retrospective longitudinal study.

SETTING
An addiction clinic in northern India.

PARTICIPANTS
Ninety-four male patients with buprenorphine dependence, registered for treatment between 1987 and 1993. Follow-up analyses were conducted for the 52 patients (55% of the index cohort) who completed more than a year of follow-up. In 48% of these 52 patients data were obtained from their clinical records of follow-up, while 52% were contacted specifically to obtain the required data on follow up.

MEASUREMENT
Baseline demographic and clinical variables; time spent in various phases of use or abstinence; outcome at the latest follow up; transition to other drugs during follow-up period.

FINDINGS
Over an average follow-up duration of 3 years, 56% of the time was spent in dependent use, 12% in non-dependent use and 32% in abstinence. By the end of follow-up, 6% of patients were dead (annual death rate 1.9%), 33% were unchanged and 61% were classified as "improved". The proportion of patients with "improved" outcome increased over the years. Patients with poor outcome had shorter follow-up and hospital stay, and had used pentazocine and/or antihistaminic injections in the buprenorphine "cocktail" more often than those with better outcome. Thirty-two patients shifted to other drugs over the years, notably heroin or polydrug use. These "transition" patients had a family history of drug use more often, started their drug career earlier, had marital and legal complications more often, spent more time in dependent phase of drug use, underwent multiple hospital admissions but stayed for a shorter period and faced more deaths, when compared to those who did not shift.

CONCLUSION
In clinic-attending male patients with buprenorphine dependence who were followed-up although dependent pattern of use of the drug continued for a long time in their career, there was a slow but progressive improvement. Transition to other drugs was associated with a worse course and outcome as compared to being stable on buprenorphine.


We discuss total cross-sections within the context of the QCD calculable mini-jet model, highlighting its successes and failures. In particular we show its description of γγ → hadrons and compare it with OPAL and L3 data. We extrapolate this result to γ p total cross-sections and propose a phenomenological ansätz for virtual photon cross-sections. We point out that the good agreement with data obtained with the Eikonal Minijet Model should not hide the many uncertainties buried in the impact parameter distribution. A model obtained from Soft Gluon Summation is briefly discussed and its application to hadronic cross-sections is shown. 1) Talk presented by G.P. at Photon-2000, Ambelside, U.K., Aug 26-31, 2000 Total Photonic and Hadronic Cross-sections R.M. Godbole∗, A. Grau†, G. Pancheri∗∗ Centre for Theoretical Studies, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India † Departamento de F́ısica Teórica y del Cosmos, Universidad de Granada, Spain ∗∗ INFN Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Via E. Fermi 40, I00044 Frascati, Italy Abstract. We discuss total cross-sections within the context of the QCD calculable mini-jet model, highlighting its successes and failures. In particular we show its description of γγ → hadrons and compare it with OPAL and L3 data. We extrapolate this result to γ p total cross-sections and propose a phenomenological ansätz for virtual photon cross-sections. We point out that the good agreement with data obtained with the Eikonal Minijet Model should not hide the many uncertainties buried in the impact parameter distribution. A model obtained from Soft Gluon Summation is briefly discussed and its application to hadronic cross-sections is shown. We discuss total cross-sections within the context of the QCD calculable mini-jet model, highlighting its successes and failures. In particular we show its description of γγ → hadrons and compare it with OPAL and L3 data. We extrapolate this result to γ p total cross-sections and propose a phenomenological ansätz for virtual photon cross-sections. We point out that the good agreement with data obtained with the Eikonal Minijet Model should not hide the many uncertainties buried in the impact parameter distribution. A model obtained from Soft Gluon Summation is briefly discussed and its application to hadronic cross-sections is shown.


The species abundance distribution (SAD) is one of the most intensively studied distributions in ecology and its hollow-curve shape is one of ecology's most general patterns. We examine the SAD in the context of all possible forms having the same richness (S) and total abundance (N), i.e. the feasible set. We find that feasible sets are dominated by similarly shaped hollow curves, most of which are highly correlated with empirical SADs (most R(2) values > 75%), revealing a strong influence of N and S on the form of the SAD and an a priori explanation for the ubiquitous hollow curve. Empirical SADs are often more hollow and less variable than the majority of the feasible set, revealing exceptional unevenness and relatively low natural variability among ecological communities. We discuss the importance of the feasible set in understanding how general constraints determine observable variation and influence the forms of predicted and empirical patterns.


Debate persists as to the amount of influence criminal history should have in determining the severity of imposed legal sanction for a criminal offense. One position maintains that the punishment for repeat and first-time offenders convicted for the same type of offense should be similar, whereas an alternative viewpoint argues that the state should sanction repeat offenders more harshly. We contribute to this discourse by investigating whether the amount of weight given to an offender's prior criminal record in sentencing affects the likelihood of repeat offending. Although initial findings showed that a substantive negative bivariate relationship existed at the county level between the weight-accorded prior criminal record in sentencing and repeat offending, this association disappeared in a more sophisticated nonlinear multilevel analysis. Our findings suggest that sanctioning repeat offenders more harshly than first-time offenders for similar offenses has little effect on attenuating repeat offending once other factors are controlled.


Photocatalysis has been established as an emerging technology for wastewater treatment since photocatalytic activity of number of semiconducting materials has already been established. For a number of chemical reactions, ternary oxides have been used as photocatalysts. In the present investigation, ternary oxide of lanthanum has been synthesized using co-precipitation. Synthesized catalyst has been characterised using X-ray diffraction patterns. Photocatalytic bleaching of methylene blue using lanthanum's ternary oxide was observed spectrophotometrically. The effect of variation of different parameters like concentration of methylene blue, pH, amount of semiconductor and light intensity was observed on the rate of photocatalytic bleaching. A tentative mechanism for the photocatalytic bleaching of methylene blue has been proposed.


Oligodendrogenesis and oligodendrocyte precursor maturation are essential processes during the course of central nervous system development, and lead to the myelination of axons. Cells of the oligodendrocyte lineage are generated in the germinal zone from migratory bipolar oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs), and acquire cell surface markers as they mature and respond specifically to factors which regulate proliferation, migration, differentiation, and survival. Loss of myelin underlies a wide range of neurological disorders, some of an autoimmune nature—multiple sclerosis probably being the most prominent. Current therapies are based on the use of immunomodulatory agents which are likely to promote myelin repair (remyelination) indirectly by subverting the inflammatory response, aspects of which impair the differentiation of OPCs. Cells of the oligodendrocyte lineage express and are capable of responding to a diverse array of ligand-receptor pairs, including neurotransmitters and nuclear receptors such as γ-aminobutyric acid, glutamate, adenosine triphosphate, serotonin, acetylcholine, nitric oxide, opioids, prostaglandins, prolactin, and cannabinoids. The intent of this review is to provide the reader with a synopsis of our present state of knowledge concerning the pharmacological properties of the oligodendrocyte lineage, with particular attention to these receptor-ligand (i.e., neurotransmitters and nuclear receptor) interactions that can influence oligodendrocyte migration, proliferation, differentiation, and myelination, and an appraisal of their therapeutic potential. For example, many promising mediators work through Ca2+ signaling, and the balance between Ca2+ influx and efflux can determine the temporal and spatial properties of oligodendrocytes (OLs). Moreover, Ca2+ signaling in OPCs can influence not only differentiation and myelination, but also process extension and migration, as well as cell death in mature mouse OLs. There is also evidence that oligodendroglia exhibit Ca2+ transients in response to electrical activity of axons for activity-dependent myelination. Cholinergic antagonists, as well as endocannabinoid-related lipid-signaling molecules target OLs. An understanding of such pharmacological pathways may thus lay the foundation to allow its leverage for therapeutic benefit in diseases of demyelination.


follicular hyperkeratosis-the type, in fact, that I usually associate with the tuberculous form of the disease. To sum up, if one considers the following points one must, I think, logically conclude that in this case the lupus erythematosus was a toxi-tuberculide: (1) the rarity of lupus erythematosus in young children, and the unusual severity and extent of the tuberculous adenitis; (2) the complete but temporary disappearance of the eruption after the first operation on what was at that time presumably the main and' primary focus of infection in the glands on the right side of the neck, although the child was freely exposed to sunlight, which previously had always provoked an outbreak; (3) the relapse of the eruption associated with involvement of other glands on both sides of the neck and in the submental region; (4) the striking and more lasting improvement in the eruption after the second and more extensive operation; (5) the fact that the eruption, although very extensive, was not of the kind usually seen in the disseminate form of the disease, many cases of which have a severe and often fatal streptococcal septicaemia.


In ways almost beyond counting, our legal system treats religion differently, subjecting it both to certain protections and certain disabilities. Developing the specifics of those protections and disabilities, along with more general theories tying the specifics together and justifying them collectively, has long been the usual stuff of debate among courts and commentators.
Those debates still continue. But in recent years, increasingly people have asked a slightly different question—whether religion should be singled out for special treatment at all, in any context, for any purpose. Across the board, but especially in the context of religious exemptions from generally applicable laws, many have come to doubt religion's distinctiveness. And traditional defenses of religion's distinctiveness have been rejected as unpersuasive or religiously partisan.
This Article offers a defense of our legal tradition and its special treatment of religion. Religious freedom can be justified on religion-neutral grounds; it serves the same kinds of values as other rights (like freedom of speech). And while religion as a category may not perfectly correspond to the underlying values that religious freedom serves, that kind of mismatch happens commonly with other rights and is probably inevitable. Ultimately, religious liberty makes sense as one important liberty within the pantheon of human freedoms. Religion may not be uniquely special, but it is special enough.


Convolutional networks (ConvNets) have become the dominant approach to semantic image segmentation. Producing accurate, pixel-level labels required for this task is a tedious and time consuming process; however, producing approximate, coarse labels could take only a fraction of the time and effort. We investigate the relationship between the quality of labels and the performance of ConvNets for semantic segmentation. We create a very large synthetic dataset with perfectly labeled street view scenes. From these perfect labels, we synthetically coarsen labels with different qualities and estimate human-hours required for producing them. We perform a series of experiments by training ConvNets with a varying number of training images and label quality. We found that the performance of ConvNets mostly depends on the time spent creating the training labels. That is, a larger coarsely-annotated dataset can yield the same performance as a smaller finely-annotated one. Furthermore, fine-tuning coarsely pre-trained ConvNets with few finely-annotated labels can yield comparable or superior performance to training it with a large amount of finely-annotated labels alone, at a fraction of the labeling cost. We demonstrate that our result is also valid for different network architectures, and various object classes in an urban scene.


Traditional intrusion detection systems are not adaptive enough to cope with the dynamic characteristics of cloud-hosted virtual infrastructures. This makes them unable to address new cloud-oriented security issues. In this paper we introduce SAIDS, a self-adaptable intrusion detection system tailored for cloud environments. SAIDS is designed to re-configure its components based on environmental changes. A prototype of SAIDS is described.


Addition Reaction of 3-Dimethylamino-2,2-dimethyl-2H-azirine with Phenylisocyanate and Diphenylketene

3-Dimethylamino-2,2-dimethyl-2H-azirine (1a) reacts with carbon disulfide and isothiocyanates with splitting of the azirine N(1), C(3)-double bond to give dipolar, fivemembered heterocyclic 1:1 adducts. In some cases, these products can undergo secondary reactions to yield 1:2 and 1:3 adducts. In this paper it is shown that the reaction of 1a with phenylisocyanate also takes place by cleavage of the N(1), C(3)-bond, whereas with diphenylketene N(1), C(2)-splitting is observed.

The reaction of 1a and phenylisocyanate in hexane at room temperature yields the 1:3 adduct 2 in addition to the trimeric isocyanate 3(Scheme 1). A mechanism for the formation of 2 is given in Scheme 5. Hydrolysis experiments with the 1:3 adduct 2, yielding the hydantoins 4–6 and the ureas 7 and 8 (Schemes 3 and 5), show that the formation of this adduct via the intermediates d, e and f is a reversible reaction.

The aminoazirines 1a and 1b undergo an addition reaction with diphenylketene to give the 3-oxazolines 14(Scheme 8), the structure of which has been established by spectral data and oxidative degradation of 14a to the 3-oxazolin-2-one 15 (R1 R2 CH3, Scheme 9).


Abstract The capture and handling of free-ranging animals is an important tool for wildlife research, conservation, and management. However, live capture may expose individual animals to risk of injury, impairment, or mortality. The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is a species of conservation concern throughout its range and physical mark–recapture techniques have formed the basis of polar bear research and harvest management for decades. We examined movement patterns of polar bears postcapture to measure their recovery from chemical immobilization and determine whether captured bears experienced prolonged effects that would affect individual fitness. Adult female (n = 61) and juvenile (n = 13) polar bears in 3 Canadian subpopulations were captured during the course of other studies using a combination of tiletamine hydrochloride and zolazepam hydrochloride delivered via remote injection from a helicopter. Bears were fitted with satellite-linked global positioning system collars and we used 3 individual-based metrics to assess their recovery from immobilization: time to move 50 m; time to move 100 m; and time to reach a baseline movement rate threshold (km/day) derived from each individual's movements in a fully recovered state (i.e., 30–60 days postcapture). There were no differences in recovery rate metrics across years, age classes, or between females with cubs of different ages. When compared across subpopulations, only the time to move 50 m differed, being shortest in the southern Beaufort Sea. Bears captured on land during the ice-free period in western Hudson Bay and Foxe Basin were more variable in their response to capture than were those handled on the sea ice of the Beaufort Sea, but in all 3 areas, bears showed gradual increases in movement rates. Movement rates indicative of recovery were often reached 48 h after capture and 51 (69%) of 74 bears appeared to be fully recovered in ≤3 days. Consistent with preliminary work on chemical immobilization of polar bears, there was no relationship between drug dose and rate of recovery. Our results indicated that polar bears captured in different locations, seasons, and life-history stages recovered predictably from chemical immobilization in a time frame that is unlikely to affect individual fitness.


Internet usage in Indonesia has been on the rise. In Indonesia, the year to year number of active internet users are expected to increase exponentially. In a 2014 survey, Indonesia placed six on the largest internet user population of the world. A joint research by Indonesian E-Commerce Association (idEA), Google Indonesia, and TNS (Taylor Nelson Sofres) revealed that in 2013, the Indonesian e-commerce market's worth reached as much as 8 billion US dollars or equivalent to 94.5 trillion Indonesian rupiahs. The number is forecasted to triple the amount into 295 trillion rupiahs by 2016. Not only does internet function as means to seek information, but it's now been a viable platform for business activities. This industry, revolving around online transactions, is called e-commerce. In e-commerce, more so than conventional business, trust is paramount. The present study sought to develop a model for consumer trust in e-commerce business in Indonesia. A scale used as measurement for this study was derived from a previous scale by McKnight and Chervany that consisted of six parts: disposition to trust, trusting belief, trusting intention, personal innovativeness, general web experiences, and perceived quality. The study was attended by 195 subjects. Sampling was done through convenience sampling. Method employed for data analysis was path analysis. All this resulted in a model of e-commerce consumer trust.


This paper discusses the so-called 'impact agenda' in UK universities specifically in relation to research on sexualities and/or queer themes. The paper reviews some of the wider controversies about the nature and purpose of the impact agenda (e.g. the risks to academic freedom; the potential implications for how scholars interact with research end-users; the problems with evaluating 'impact'). It then raises questions regarding the visibility of sexualities and/or queer research within the impact agenda especially given the oft-perceived marginality of research on these themes in some disciplines and the historical and contemporary challenges faced by researchers working on sexualities and queer themes. The paper compiles and discusses data on the presence of sexualities and queer themes within so-called Impact Case Studies submitted to the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014. It concludes with some reflections on the challenges the REF experiences when evaluating 'public engagement', something which is perhaps particularly unfortunate for a number of scholars working on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issue, given that one of the greatest collective contributions of scholarship in this area has been to raise awareness and shift public/student perceptions, even if this is challenging to measure.


We present an approach to Requirements Elicitation based on AWARE, a goal oriented technique conceived for Web applications. The approach integrates a goal-oriented analysis of the needs of each stakeholder class with a subsequent phase of function-oriented analysis. Goal-oriented analysis facilitates an active participation of users and, therefore, can be considered as a substantial step towards user acceptance of the system. Our approach introduces the use of predefined diagrams of user's needs and confirmation/disconfirmation interviews, that easies and fastens user interaction. The approach was tested on an Information Intensive Application, namely a collaborative document management system for a fast growing Management Consulting organization. The system will support both marketing activities and consulting work on the whole life cycle of consulting projects. In our case study the goal-oriented approach actually encouraged active participation of future users in the dynamic and unstructured environment typical to a Management Consulting organization. The active user participation helped analyst to maximize the potential value supplied to each professional and to minimize the future effort required to use the system. The consulting organization is currently implementing the system and decided to adopt the approach also for their customers.


A cytological grading for mast cell tumours (MCTs) would be highly desirable, allowing to select the most appropriate therapeutic intervention prior to surgery. This study evaluates the applicability on fine-needle aspirations (FNAs) of the novel Kiupel grading system, based on number of mitoses, multinucleated cells, bizarre nuclei and presence of karyomegaly. Fifty consecutive cases with pre-operative cytological diagnosis were included. In cytological specimens, approximately 1000 cells were evaluated, and the histological grade was assessed on the corresponding resected specimens. On cytology, the above parameters were significantly different between histologically low-grade and high-grade tumours (P < 0.001). The cytograding correctly predicted the histological grade in 47 cases (accuracy, 94%; sensitivity, 84.6%; specificity, 97.3%). Two high-grade MCTs (4%) were not detected on cytology. The cytograding can provide helpful insights to assist clinical decisions in most cases. However, the risk of underestimation in a minority of patients represents a limit to the overall utility of the technique.


In this paper, two observability measures are introduced for a discrete linear system. The degrees of observability of both the system and its subspaces can be examined with these measures. The measures are well conditioned to perturbation and applicable to multi-input/multi-output time-varying systems. The relations among observability, observability measures, error covariance, and the information matrix are presented. It is shown that the measures have direct connections with the singular value decomposition of the information matrix. In contrast to the error covariance, the measures are determined by the system model and independent of the initial error covariance. An example of the observability analysis of the Global Positioning System/inertial navigation system is given. The measures are confirmed to be less sensitive to the system model perturbation. It is also shown that the vertical component of the gyro bias can be considered unobservable with a tactical-grade inertial measurement unit for a horizontal constant-speed motion.


The article reveals the concepts of "religiosity" and "Armenian religious identity" in modern Armenia, some examples of the Armenian national religion. In particular, the traditions of Armenian apostolic Christianity and its folk versions, expressed in religious holidays and rites, are considered. Armenians are one of the oldest peoples of the world, the documentary history of which dates back about three millennia and Armenia was the first country where Christianity was proclaimed as a state religion. For such a long time, the people have repeatedly experienced tragic periods of their history, and periods of unprecedented heyday, and creative work. The national features of the character of Armenians usually include hard work, determination, energy, resilience, entrepreneurship. They have a special addiction to teaching and crafts, respect for written culture, devotion to their language, home and family. This people is characterized by irascibility and self-love, combined with good-natured peacefulness, hospitality, love of music and subtle humor; they are easily appeased. At the same time, Armenians are characterized by developed individualism, unwillingness to submit to anyone, this allowed them to preserve their culture and religion, which have been vividly embodied in the customs and traditions of religious and secular character of this ethnic group and which are significant to this day.


Fecundity, fertility and barrenness are three concepts that are interlinked within the discourse on women. Specifically, in Africa, they serve as measuring rods for a woman's relevance and status in most societies. Fecundity, itself, presupposes the capability by a woman to procreate. Fertility, on the other hand entails the process of actualization of procreation, which results in conception and subsequent birth. The corollary of this is barrenness which is a presentation of infertility in women which consequently affects motherhood as a result of the inability to conceive and bear children. This work investigates the phenomenon of fecundity, fertility and barrenness in Nigerian drama but specifically in Song of a Goat by JP Clark and The Trials of Bro Jero by Wole Soyinka. We shall look at the characters of Ebiere in Song of a Goat and the Woman Penitent in The Trials of Bro Jero as typologies of women who suffer excruciating pain, shame and despondence as a result of their childless status.


The implications of methamphetamine use are vast and prevalent in the U.S. This epidemic is also well recognized in Tennessee and in Hamilton County. The number of men and women that continue to use methamphetamine speaks to the importance of this issue. Among these individuals, pregnant women comprise a significant portion of female methamphetamine users across the United States. The potential complications that can arise for not only a mother but also her child due to maternal methamphetamine use pose a much more significant issue. The detrimental effects that a child can experience as a result of maternal methamphetamine use during pregnancy can potentially lead to ramifications that remain with the child throughout the duration of its life. A methamphetamine using woman should be aware of the negative complications that methamphetamine use may have on her and her child, both in utero and long term. The purpose of this study was to provide educational content on methamphetamine, the general effects of methamphetamine use, and the effects of perinatal methamphetamine use on maternal and child outcomes. Since limited knowledge on this topic is currently made available to nursing students, this project took a unique approach to enhancing the practice of nurses by educating nursing students so that they are better equipped to recognize methamphetamine users in the clinical arena and to increase awareness and knowledge through education in order to increase prevention and reduce the rate of disease. PRE/POST surveys were used to assess level of knowledge prior to and following an educational presentation of methamphetamine content. Teaching was performed through the use of a standardized patient role scenario and electronic Prezi presentation. At the conclusion of the study, a comparison of the PRE/POST data illustrated an apparent knowledge deficit regarding the effects of perinatal methamphetamine on maternal and child outcomes among the third level nursing students enrolled in the maternal-childbearing course. Results from the quantitative data indicated a significant increase in student knowledge from PRE to POST test (t (33) = -16.94, p < .001, d = 3.66). Qualitative data reflected in the students' written responses showed that information acquired from the study is anticipated to be used in future clinical practice. Four major themes emerged from the qualitative data: (1) teaching others, (2) identification of drug use, (3) patient care, and (4) overall presentation benefit. The increased ability to demonstrate these major themes as a result of increased knowledge will subsequently enhance the students' practices as nurses. This was expressed through the student's reflection statements. From the data, it is evident that the students displayed a statistically significant increase in knowledge and awareness that has the potential to positively influence their professional nursing practices. This project is the first of many steps that will hopefully be taken in the future to combat the problem surrounding methamphetamine use. Continuous education through the use of additional teaching strategies may continue to enhance student knowledge in other settings outside the medical arena and among larger populations. Continued education can potentially reduce the incidence and prevalence of methamphetamine.


This study was aimed to investigate the effects of acid treatment on the surfacee characteristics ofgrit-blasted titanium alloy (Ti6Al4V). These treatments included (a) Al2O3 blasting, (b) Al2O3 blasting + HF acid etching, (c) Al2O3 blasting + HCl/H2SO4 acid etching, and (d) Al2O3 blasting + HF acid etching + HCl/H2SO4 acid etching. The surface topography and chemical composition of the samples were identified by field-emission scanning electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, respectively. Roughness of the as-treated samples was obtained from atomic force microscopy (AFM) and profilometry. Wettability of the samples was measured using sessile drop method. The results showed that porous structure on the surface of titanium alloy was prepared by dual acid etching treatment and the surfaces treated with acid had higher roughness and better wettability than the surface treated only by grit-blasting.


This volume provides a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the contribution of multiparty intergenerational talk in a variety of cultures to the development of children's communicative capacities. The book focuses on the complexity of the cultural and interactional contexts in which pragmatic learning occurs and re-examines certain assumptions implicit in research on language socialization to date, such as primacy of dyadic interactions in the early ages and the presupposition of a monolingual social matrix. One of the aims of the book is to demonstrate the degree of cultural diversity in paths of pragmatic development. Individual chapters present empirically grounded analyses of talk with children of all ages, in different participation structures and in a variety of cultures. In pursuing this theme the volume is meant to further enrich cross-cultural perspectives on language socialization by providing in each of its chapters an empirically grounded analysis of the development of one specific dimension of discursive skill. The nine invited chapters comprise new empirical work on the development of specific discourse dimensions. Authors have been asked also to adopt a reflexive stand on their line of research and to incorporate in the chapter a comprehensive and critical perspective on former work on the discursive dimension investigated. The discourse dimensions represented in the volume include narratives, explanations, the language of control in intergenerational and intragenerational talk, the language of humor and affect, and bilingual conversations. The volume offers a rich spectrum of cultural variety in pragmatic development, including studies of American, Greek, Japanese, Mayan, Norwegian, and Swedish children and families.


Low energy neutron induced fission of 235U is studied in the framework of the multi-modal fission model. The fission fragment properties, such as the yields, the average total kinetic energy distribution and the average neutron separation energy, are investigated for incident neutron energies from thermal to 6.0 MeV. The multi-modal fission approach is also used to evaluate the prompt fission neutron multiplicity and spectra for the neutron-induced fission of 235U with an improved version of the Los Alamos model for incident neutrons below the (n, nf) threshold. The three most dominant fission modes are taken into account. The model parameters are determined on the basis of experimental data. The calculated results are in good agreement with the experimental data.


Acoustic emotion recognition is a popular and central research direction in paralinguistic analysis, due its relation to a wide range of a ff ective states / traits and manifold applications. Devel-oping highly generalizable models still remains as a challenge for researchers and engineers, because of multitude of nuisance factors. To assert generalization, deployed models need to han-dle spontaneous speech recorded under di ff erent acoustic conditions compared to the training set. This requires that the models are tested for cross-corpus robustness. In this work, we first investigate the suitability of Long-Short-Term-Memory (LSTM) models trained with time- and space-continuously annotated af-fective primitives for cross-corpus acoustic emotion recognition. We next employ an e ff ective approach to use the frame level valence and arousal predictions of LSTM models for utterance level a ff ect classification and apply this approach on the ComParE 2018 challenge corpora. The proposed method alone gives motivating results both on development and test set of the Self-Assessed A ff ect Sub-Challenge. On the development set, the cross-corpus prediction based method gives a boost to performance when fused with top components of the baseline system. Results indicate the suitability of the proposed method for both time-continuous and utterance level cross-corpus acoustic emotion recognition tasks.


TECTONICS AND SEDIMENTATION IN THE DEVONIAN AND CARBONIFEROUS ROCKS OF SW DEVON, ENGLAND Robert David Seago Detailed mapping of the rocks to the north and south of Plymouth reveals a sedimentary sequence deformed by a series of folds and thrusts. Two structural zones exist each with a different style of deformation. In the Lower to Upper Devonian rocks of the southern zone, slip vectors, vergence and facing of D 1 folds indicate that the transport direction is to the north west. The northern zone, comprising Upper Devonian and lower Carboniferous strata, extends into central Devon and east Cornw~ll and the geometry and facing of the early folds in these rocks indicate a transport direction to the south or south east. Dl folds generally verge north but are downward facing towards the south. The two structural zones confront each other at an E-W trending line which passes through Cargreen to the north of Plymouth. The confrontation is interpreted as a northerly dipping backthrust produced by underthrusting of the Carboniferous foreland basin flysch deposits which become inverted and backthrust towards the south. The above sequence of events is dependent on a thin-skinned tectonic model and can be incorporated into the well established Early Carboniferous plate tectonic setting. Parameters indicating strike slip movement can also be incorporated within the envisaged thrust regime. These are thought to have been generated by differential movement related to the shape of the Variscan Front. The oblique trend of the Variscan Front to the regional transport direction observed in Southern Ireland, Wales and England, where it trends WNWESE, is thought to be a function of lateral buttressing against the Irish and LondonlBrabant Massifs during NW transport of thrust sheets. Re-mapping in the Plymouth area has also led to modifications of the Devonian stratigraphy and sedimentology of the Lower Devonian. The previously named Dartmouth Beds/Slates have been re-named the Dartmouth Group and comprise the Renney Rocks, Wembury, Yealm and Warren Formations. The latter pass upwards, by interdigitation, into the Meadfoot Group which in turn consists of the Bovisand and Staddon Grit Formations. Overlying the Meadfoot Group is the Plymouth Group which is divided into the Jennycliff Slate Formation, Plymouth Limestone Formation, Compton Slate Formation and the Saltram Slate Formation. The division of the previously named Plympton Formation into the two latter formations has allowed more control on structural mapping in the area north of Plymouth. The recognition of repeated stratigraphy and its further subdivision indicates that, due to thrusting, the sequences are much thinner than previously thought. The sedimentological character of the Dartmouth Group implies deposition in an alluvial setting and sub-environments include channels, sheetflow, overbank flow and lake deposition. Debris flows indicate that the area was periodically unstable. It is envisaged that deposition took place on a wet alluvial plain with rare drying out. The deposits probably represent a distal setting to the more proximal Old Red Sandstone alluvial deposits of South Wales. Higher up the sequence the Meadfoot Group records a major marine transgression across the area (Bovisand Formation) with a minor regressive pulse represented by the Staddon Grit Formation. The boundary conditions of these two formations has been examined and the sedimentology of this part of the sequence indicates the presence of a series of offshore bar forms. They are thought to represent mouth bar sequences related to the overlying deltaic sequence of the Staddon Grit Formation. Analysis of the onshore New Red Sandstone indicates the presence of a topographic high in the Start area. This local palaeogeographic detail can be related to the regional offshore Permian Basin form.


Remote learning has been an increasingly growing field in the last two decades. The Internet development, as well as the increase in PC's capabilities and bandwidth capacity, has made remote learning through the internet a convenient learning preference, leading to a variety of new interfaces and methods. In this work, we consider a remote learning interface, developed in a Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) Laboratory, and evaluate the contribution of different interface components to the overall performance and learning ability of end users. The evaluated components are the control method of the robotic arm and the use of a three-dimensional simulation tool before and during the execution of a robotic task. An experiment is designed and executed, comparing alternative interface designs for remote learning of robotic operation. A teleoperation task was given to 120 engineering students through five semesters. The number of steps required for completing the task, the number of errors during the execution, and the improvement rate during the execution were measured and analyzed. The results provide guidelines for a better design of an interface for remote learning of robotic operation. The main contribution of this paper is in the introduction of a new teaching tool for laboratories and the supplied guidelines for an efficient design of such tools.


The Mobile ad hoc network (MANET) are infrastructure-less, self-organizing, rapidly deployable wireless networks, they are highly suitable for applications involving special outdoor events, communications in regions with no wireless infrastructure, emergencies and natural disasters, and military operations. Routing is one of the key issues in MANETs due to their highly dynamic and distributed nature. In particular, energy efficient routing is the most important design criteria for MANETs since mobile nodes will be powered by batteries with limited capacity. The routing mechanism is based on minimum hop counts, the distance between each pair of nodes becomes larger and hence higher transmission power is required for the communication. Power failure of a mobile node not only affect the node itself but also its ability to forward packets on behalf of others and thus the overall network lifetime. The low residual energy might be one of the reasons of route breakage. Also the mobility of nodes makes link failure and retransmission of packet. In this paper we have modified the Energy Conscious DSR protocol which has basic protocol Dynamic Source routing (DSR). The paper focuses on the mobility of nodes, low residual energy which is the cause of route breakage and packet retransmission, which get solved and communication is keep going without any interruption and the network lifetime increases. We have validated our proposed protocol through ns-2.34 and evaluated the performance of the networks by considering few energy metrics. We got the results as our modified ECDSR outperforms Ad-Hoc on demand Distance Vector (AODV) in performance analysis. Keywords— MANET, Energy efficiency, Low residual energy,


This thesis investigates how anorexia nervosa is constructed
and deployed as a discursive social and psychological
category, drawing critically on feminist psychoanalytic and
Foucauldian theories of gender, subjectivity and discourse.
The introduction provides a brief discussion of diagnostic
criteria and the epidemiology of anorexia. It outlines the
thesis as a whole, providing a brief explanation of the
approach adopted in the thesis. Chapter 2 critically reviews
recent research into anorexia nervosa. Chapter 3 sets out the
theoretical framework of the thesis, discussing Foucauldian
and psychoanalytic theory, particularly, feminist Lacanian
theory. Chapter 4 provides a brief critique of empiricist
methods in the social sciences and argues the need for a
feminist post-structuralist approach to research. In the two
empirical studies of this thesis I have adopted a discourse
analytic methodology. Hence, Chapter 5 discusses the different
forms of discourse analysis within psychology before setting
out the specific form of discourse analysis and the
methodology for the first study. Study One (chapters 6 and 7)
examines the emergence of 'anorexia nervosa' as an object of
medical discourse. It first provides an historical overview of
Georgian and Victorian medicine and then presents a discourse-oriented
history of the emergence of anorexia nervosa as a
clinical disease entity. The study demonstrates firstly, an
historical variability in discursive constructions of women's
self-starvation and of anorexia nervosa and secondly, that
these constructions interface with particular socio-historically
specific constructions of femininity. The second
study (chapters 8 to 12) is based on in-depth, semi-structured
interviews with women diagnosed as anorexic. Discourse
analysis was used to analyze the interview transcripts to
explore how anorexia, femininity, subjectivity and the body
are discursively constituted. The analyses are discussed in
relation to the theoretical framework of the thesis as well as
previous psychological research into anorexia. The conclusion
discusses the analyses of both studies, drawing out the
implications of the research in terms of understanding
anorexia nervosa, femininity, subjectivity and the body.


The Zika virus (ZIKV) epidemics, declared by WHO as a global public health emergency in 2016, captured an unprecedented attention of the general public as it is was spreading from Africa to Asia, European countries and Continental USA, mostly by the bite of an infected Aedes species mosquito but also through pregnancy and sexual intercource. The rapid dissemination of information and occasionally misinformation thought the internet and social media, created opportunities for knowledge but also fear and frustration. As in many other countries, there was an increased concern in India and especially among young couples and pregnant women. The challenge to provide awareness in a quick, cost effective, valid way soon emerged. Infographics has been recognized as an innovative tool to approach the audience who searches the Internet regarding public health issues. We prepared Infographics on Zika virus disease (ZIKV) tailored to the language, readability level and culture of local people. Based on this experience, we review the use of Inforgaphics in ZIKV, highlighting the opportunity to make a real impact by using them but also the need for better research tools in evaluating the effectiveness of both electronic and printed version of public health-related infographics, especially in low source settings.


In general, cooperative learning refers to the use of small groups of students to encourage them to work together and help each other to learn, accomplish learning goals, and increase their learning potential. This study attempts to explore the effectiveness of cooperative learning at secondary level classroom learning and students' achievement in particular. It also compares the achievements in means of scores between a student group taught using cooperative learning strategies and another group taught using non-cooperative learning strategies. This study is designed following a quasiexperimental research technique. 60 students from a secondary school of class 9 taking Science from 2 different sections were selected as samples and were divided into equal number experimental group and control group for this study. A pretest was conducted before administering the cooperative learning technique which was followed by a post-test after on to determine the effectiveness in the form of learning achievement. Students' achievements were measured through a self-constructed achievement test which was used in both the pretest and post-test. The data were analyzed through t-test using SPSS. The comparison of these results indicated a meaningful statistical difference between the two groups, and it was also found from the teachers that students who work in the cooperative learning groups were more engaged, more responsible in completing group assignments and more organized while working in their respective groups. Therefore, in order to promote quality learning, the results of this study may encourage the practice of cooperative learning for the secondary school level. To make the learning of students more enjoyable, effective, and sustained at secondary level; schools and teachers need to use the cooperative learning technique in the classrooms


Flash flood events are floods characterised by a very rapid response of basins to storms, often resulting in loss of life and property damage. Due to the specific space- time scale of this type of flood, the lead time available for triggering civil protection measures is typically short. Rain- fall threshold values specify the amount of precipitation for a given duration that generates a critical discharge in a given river cross section. If the threshold values are exceeded, it can produce a critical situation in river sites exposed to al- luvial risk. It is therefore possible to directly compare the observed or forecasted precipitation with critical reference values, without running online real-time forecasting systems. The focus of this study is the Mignone River basin, located in Central Italy. The critical rainfall threshold values are eval- uated by minimising a utility function based on the infor- mative entropy concept and by using a simulation approach based on radar data. The study concludes with a system performance analysis, in terms of correctly issued warnings, false alarms and missed alarms.


The study aimed to identify significant antenatal risk factors for cerebral palsy (CP) among extremely preterm infants with a matched case‐control design. Infants born between 1989 and 1996 at 24 to 27 weeks'gestation who survived to hospital discharge were evaluated: 30 with a proven diagnosis of CP at 2 years corrected for prematurity and 120 control children matched for gestational age without CP. Information on maternal obstetric risk factors and medication was obtained. Matched analyses were performed and odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated. An antenatal diagnosis of intrauterine growth restriction was associated with an increased risk of CP (OR 6.6; 95% CI 1.8 to 25.2), while maternal administration of corticosteroids was associated with a reduced risk of CP (OR 0.4; 95% CI 0.1 to 0.98). A high rate of placental histopathology was achieved but no relation between clinical or histological chorioamnionitis or funisitis and CP was demonstrated. Maternal preeclampsia was not associated with a statistically significant reduction in the risk of CP. It is concluded that a reduced risk of CP in extremely preterm infants is associated with the antenatal use of corticosteroids.


This research looked at the performance of a 1,370 m3 blast furnace in operation at the MMK site after the percent of pellets in the iron ore charge and the ore burden radial distribution at the furnace top were simultaneously changed. In the periods studied, the percent of pellets was within 28–40%. Through changing the charging matrix, one built a burden layer at the furnace top which had different concentrations of iron ore coming from a hopper of the bell-less top (BLT) charging system through sloping chute stations, where stations No. 9–11, 6–8 and 3–5 are characterized by the following iron ore concentration (%): 85–94, 54–58 and 25–40 respectively. As a result, the authors determined what coke and iron ore distribution pattern would be optimal for a blast furnace with a compact BLT charging system depending on the amount of pellets in the burden. When pellets account for 28–30%, the amount of iron ore materials charged in the peripheral zone of the furnace with the sloping chute positioned to Stations 9–11 that proved to be optimal was 85–90%. When the amount of iron ore charged at the above stations was reduced from 94 to 90% while Stations 3-5 saw an increase from 25 to 29% and Station 2 saw a decrease from 45 to 22%, it became possible to cut the consumption of coke by raising the amount of natural gas consumed from 13.1 to 13.9 th m3/h. The natural gas hydrogen utilization rose from 32.2 to 35.4% delivering a 4.6 kg/t of iron reduction in the specific consumption of coke. A 30 to 40% rise in the amount of pellets justified the increased concentration of iron ore in the peripheral zone (from 85–90 to 93–94%). An increase from 85 to 93% made it possible to raise the consumption of natural gas by 1.2 th m3/h reaching a substitution rate of 0.85 kg/m3. 1 Nosov Magnitogorsk state technical university (Magnitogorsk, Russia) 2 Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works PJSC (MMK) (Magnitogorsk, Russia) E-mail: email@example.com


Coordinated traffic signals can improve progression and delay times by switching timing plans as traffic conditions change. As cycle and split changes shift capacity where needed, signals shift offsets to maintain or to reestablish progressive flow. Signal offsets dictate, for each main-street green phase, where that green starts in each cycle with the intention of promoting nonstop green waves. To start it earlier or later at a given signal, the options are to shorten one or more intermediate phases or to lengthen one or more intermediate phases (or the main-street phase itself or both phases). Such phase time changes may create a temporary lack of capacity or impose extra delay time. Controllers from all vendors offer transition options to choose from that are differentiated by the amount of offset correction possible per cycle, whether they use a short or a long cycle, and by the distribution of time added to or subtracted from the set of phases. Common transition methods include dwell, maximum dwell, add, subtract, and shortway—all of which were recently incorporated into the CorSim actuated–controller logic. A transient profile analysis method is introduced and demonstrated with a model of a major arterial in Tucson, Arizona, and an additional hypothetical network model. The resulting transient profiles highlight the performance transition behavior that occurs during traffic signal plan transition and that contrasts with assertions previously reported in the literature.


BACKGROUND
Compulsive shopping disorder is increasingly recognized as a treatable impulse-control disorder. We report the first long-term, naturalistic follow-up of patients with compulsive shopping disorder, which examined the course of illness over 1 year in a cohort that had completed up to 3 months of open-label treatment with citalopram, 20 mg/day to 60 mg/day. In that trial, 17 (71%) of 24 subjects who met McElroy and colleagues' diagnostic criteria for compulsive shopping disorder were responders (Clinical Global Impressions-Improvement scale rating of much or very much improved and Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale-Shopping Version score decrease of >/= 50%).

METHOD
Follow-up interviews occurred 3, 6, 9, and 12 months after study end. Data gathered included comorbid conditions, estimated total debt, 2-week spending, whether the patient was taking citalopram, and illness versus remission status. Remission was defined as no longer meeting diagnostic criteria for compulsive shopping disorder. Data were gathered between March 2000 and January 2002.

RESULTS
Of responders at trial end, 81% (13/16), 71% (10/14), 71% (10/14), and 73% (11/15) were in remission at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months. Mean 2-week compulsive shopping expenditures decreased from 773 US dollars (median = 500 US dollars) at baseline to 351 US dollars (median = 0 US dollars) at month 12, and mean total debt decreased from 17,833 US dollars (median = 20,000 US dollars) to 16,752 US dollars (median = 14,000 US dollars). No clear association was seen between taking citalopram and remission status (p =.55, p =.08, p =.58, and p =.60 at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months, respectively; Fisher exact test). The majority of trial nonresponders remained ill at each follow-up point.

CONCLUSION
An acute response to citalopram predicts a greater likelihood of continued remission over 1 year, although the mechanisms that maintain remission require further investigation.


"From the time of the foundation of its cathedral in 597, Canterbury has been the epicentre of Britain's ecclesiastical history, and an exceptionally important centre for architectural and visual innovation. Focusing especially but not exclusively on Christ Church cathedral, this legacy is explored in seventeen essays concerned with Canterbury's art, architecture and archaeology between the early Anglo-Saxon period and the close of the middle ages. Papers consider the relationship between between architectural setting and liturgical practice, and between stationary and movable fittings, while fresh insights are offered into the aesthetic, spiritual, and pragmatic considerations that shaped the fabric of Christ Church and St Augustine's abbey, alongside critical reflections on Canterbury's historiography and relationship to the wider world. Taken together, these studies demonstrate the richness of the surviving material, and its enduring ability to raise new questions.


Florida is blessed with abundant rainfall averaging between 47 and 53 inches annually, the prolific Floridan Aquifer, and more first magnitude springs than any other place on earth. It is against backdrop that the 1971 Florida Legislature established Florida's utopian water policy: to "provide sufficient water for all existing and future reasonable-beneficial uses … while providing sufficient water for natural systems." In 1972, the Florida Legislature established five water management districts that are charged with implementing Florida's water policy—largely through the issuance of permits for groundwater extraction. Groundwater levels of the Upper Floridan Aquifer have declined significantly during the past 75 years. Almost all of the Saint Johns River Water Management District and approximately 35% of the Suwannee River Water Management District meet the definition of "Water Resource Caution Area"—an area where existing sources of water are not adequate to satisfy future water demands and sustain water resources within the 20-year planning horizon. The Districts have finally recognized that the Floridan Aquifer is at or is very near the sustainable limit of production and that future demand must be met through alternative water sources if we are to avoid unacceptable harm to wetlands, lakes, and springs. This presentation will look at examples of high-profile water bodies in distress (Silver Springs Group, Lake Geneva, and Lake Brooklyn). We will then look at the efforts of the Districts individually—and cooperatively through the North Florida Regional Water Supply Partnership—to develop a regional water supply plan that will provide for all demands over the 20-year planning horizon. Aspects covered include developing protective minimum flows and levels (MFL), developing MFL Prevention and Recovery Strategies, establishing a regional groundwater model that predicts responses to stresses, and identifying alternative water supply sources—including residential conservation and agricultural best management practices.


The mineralogy, chemistry, and mineral textures of tuffs and tuffaceous sediments from two drill cores, CCM-1 and CCM-2, were studied to better understand depositional and diagenetic conditions of the Creede Formation of Colorado. Similarities between phenocrystic crystal assemblages and relict shard shapes and sizes in correlated tuffs indicate minimal offset between CCM-1 and CCM-2. Vertically zoned sequences of authigenic silicates in tuffs reflect alteration of silicic-intermediate vitric tuffs within an elevated geothermal gradient (100-110 °C/km). The abundance of clinoptilolite and Al-smectite in drill core CCM-2 is consistent with diagenetic waters having low to moderate salinity and a pH of 7-9. The higher-grade mineral assemblage, including analcime, quartz, minor heulandite, and albite, in CCM-1 reflects hotter fluids migrating through more permeable strata. The presence of kaolinite and mixed-layer clays in nontuff lithologies in CCM-1 indicates intermittently low cation/H+ ratios and SiO 2 ( a q ) activities. Alteration occurred in a relatively open chemical system based on calculated gains and losses from silicic to intermediate end-member compositions of Fisher Quartz Latite compared to Creede Formation tuffs. On the basis of comparisons with studies of zeolite formation in other burial diagenetic systems, the observed authigenic silicate assemblage (opal-CT, quartz, clinoptilolite, and analcime) in tuffs of the Creede Formation probably formed within ∼3-4 m.y. of deposition. This assemblage was later overprinted by a hydrothermal event (K-feldspar, I/S, C/S, chlorite, and quartz) in CCM-1 at 17.5 Ma. Authigenic silicate assemblages in tuffs poorly constrain the salinity of diagenetic pore waters because they could form in waters ranging from fresh to moderately saline with a pH ≤ 9. The inferred low to moderate salinities for silicate alteration and relatively open chemical system suggest that salinities were progressively lowered from moderate to high during deposition of ancient Lake Creede to lower salinities during silicate reactions associated with later burial diagenesis and hydrothermal alteration.


Abstract : Maahine Learning and Pattern Recognition is treated as the problem of adaptively constructing approximations to the joint probability densities of the N-variables with which members of classes are represented. The adaptive techniques studied construct approximations to the joint probability densities in the form of generalized N-dimensional histograms in which the locations, shapes and sizes of the histogram cells are generated by the known samples of the pattern classes. To economize on the number of cells constructed, a cell growth mechanism was devised to adapt the size and shape of the cells to best represent the probability densities. The accuracy of this method of representation was tested with the aid of a digital computer on large quantities of pattern samples of known probability distribution. The experimental results were compared with those that could be predicted theoretically. Quality criteria to assess the reliability of the decision rendered by a classification device and to influence the mechanism of machine learning were considered. (Author)


BACKGROUND
Opium addicts (OA) with no biliary symptoms have been shown to have dilated common bile duct (CBD). Endoscopic retrograde cholangio-pancreatography (ERCP) without biliary drainage in such asymptomatic OA is hazardous. Hence it is not indicated unless there are clear clinical and laboratory evidences of biliary stasis.

AIMS
To show that even when matched with controls with the same clinical diagnosis of the biliary system, OA still have significantly larger CBD diameters and that OA with biliary symptoms should be treated no differently from non-OA with biliary symptoms.

METHOD
Seven OA (all Chinese males), four of whom had undergone ERCP (three for CBD stones and one for ampullary carcinoma), were compared, using t-test, to 7 age, sex, race and diagnosis-matched controls, four of whom had also undergone ERCP (three for CBD stones and one for ampullary carcinoma). When ERCP was not done, ultrasonography was used to assess the biliary system and measure the CBD diameter.

RESULTS
The mean (SD) CBD diameters of OA and controls were 15.7 mm (5.65) and 8.3 mm (5.95) respectively (t = 2.399, p = 0.032). The mean (SD) weight of OA and controls were 55.8 kg (9.22) and 57.3 kg (9.21) respectively (t = -0.305, p = 0.763). Only two of the seven OA were born in China, the remaining five in Malaysia.

CONCLUSIONS
OA do get CBD pathology like non-OA and if indicated there should be no qualms about performing ERCP in them. When matched for age, sex, race and clinical diagnosis, OA still have a significantly larger CBD despite no difference in body weight.


Dyadic coping has repeatedly been associated with positive outcomes in intimate relationships. However, less is known about the prospective predictors of dyadic coping. This study investigates clarity of other's feelings (CoF) as a potential predictor of supportive dyadic coping in a longitudinal study. In a sample of 368 couples, self-reported CoF and supportive dyadic coping perceived by the partner were assessed annually over 3 years. Results revealed that interpersonal differences in men and women's CoF are positively associated with interpersonal differences in supportive dyadic coping. Moreover, interpersonal differences in men's CoF predicted long-term intrapersonal changes in supportive dyadic coping of both partners. Couple intervention programs might strengthen couple's dyadic coping skills by targeting men's understanding of their partner's feelings.


The ability to efficiently implement innovations in agricultural holdings, acquire knowledge, and to make effective use of biological progress in plant production are all challenges in modern agriculture. Globalization processes are a catalyst for innovation transfer as well as technical, biological, and organizational progress promotion. The ability to utilize innovations in Polish agriculture will be decisive for its development opportunities and competitive position at the international level.


By applying the rules of market integration and fundamental freedoms (e.g., the principles of non-discrimination and non-restriction), the CJEU has enforced various elements of the taxpayers' personal ability to pay taxes that have been denied by Member States in cross-border situations. The CJEU's Schumacker-doctrine shapes the taking into account of the taxpayer's personal and family circumstances in the internal market. The article argues that the CJEU's Schumacker-doctrine still contains a number of inconsistencies and incorrect assumptions, and raises the question whether EU law has to stick to this Schumacker-doctrine or go another way. Whether this issue can be resolved by the CJEU on the basis of existing international tax treaty provisions depends on its case law and the national laws of the Member States, or the possible need for specific EU legislation. The case law of the CJEU in Imfeld and Garcet of 12 December 2013 will be discussed, with an overview of possible tools to refine the taking into account of the taxpayer's personal and family circumstances. The article concludes that actions on EU level are needed to eliminate double (non-)taking into account of the personal and family circumstances that is the result of the parallel exercises of Member States' fiscal sovereignty.