In the past fifty years, the High Court of Australia has scrutinised the constitutional validity of military service tribunals on several occasions. Each time, the validity of service tribunals to conduct trials and impose punishment in relation to the particular offence has been upheld on the basis that it derives from a proper exercise by the legislature of its power under s 51(vi) of the Constitution. On no occasion has this been considered by the Court as a whole to involve a breach of the separation of powers doctrine. However, while it is generally accepted that service tribunals exercise what would ordinarily be seen as falling within the definition of "judiciary power", there has been no unifying and satisfactory explanation as to why this does not breach the separation of powers doctrine. In addition, no clear majority position has emerged as to the limits of the functions of service tribunals or the criteria for determining which offences can be properly dealt with by service tribunals without usurping the role of the courts. In particular, there is no consensus as to whether it is acceptable for defence legislation to provide simply that all civil offences in a particular jurisdiction automatically constitute disciplinary offences for defence purposes which therefore fall within the realm of service tribunals.Since the latest relevant High Court case, the composition of the High Court has changed dramatically. Only two of the present Justices, Gaudron and McHugh JJ, have delivered judgments on this issue in that Court, and on those occasions both Justices indicated that they disagreed with the reasoning of the majority in the prevailing authorities. If this issue came before the High Court today, it is unclear how the other Justices would decide. However, it is quite possible that a majority of the Court would choose not to follow those authorities. In addition, the separation of powers doctrine has enjoyed a reemergence of sorts in recent years, exemplified by cases such as Brandy v. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Finally, the Commonwealth Parliament Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade very recently completed its inquiry into military justice in Australia. These circumstances present an appropriate opportunity to reassess the state of the law regarding military service tribunals in Australia, in anticipation of a more certain and defensible position being reached by the High Court in the near future.


The CSI 300 Futures Index (CSI300F) rises (falls) implicitly in five consecutive minutes; this rise (fall) is defined as the implicit rising (falling) phenomena in this article. Owing to big data concerns, the authors explore whether investors would profit when the implicit rising (falling) phenomena occur—events that exist in practice but remain unexplored in the literature. In this study, they reveal that implicit rising (falling) phenomena might trigger the rise (fall) of the CSI300F which implies that momentum strategies may be appropriate for trading the CSI300F as the implicit phenomena occurs. The authors suspect that implicit phenomena could be an indication of manipulation of investors with market force or insiders. Thus, they argue that investors should consider these results when trading index futures.


Component level performance thresholds are widely used as a basic means for performance management. As the complexity of managed applications increases, manual threshold maintenance becomes a difficult task. Complexity arises from having a large number of application components and their operational metrics, dynamically changing workloads, and compound relationships between application components. To alleviate this problem, we advocate that component level thresholds should be computed, managed and optimized automatically and autonomously. To this end, we have designed and implemented a performance threshold management application that automatically and dynamically computes two separate component level thresholds: one for controlling Type I errors and another for controlling Type II errors. Our solution additionally facilitates metric selection thus minimizing management overheads. We present the theoretical foundation for this autonomic threshold management application, describe a specific algorithm and its implementation, and evaluate it using real-life scenarios and production data sets. As our present study shows, with proper parameter tuning, our on-line dynamic solution is capable of nearly optimal performance thresholds calculation.


The paper investigates the Turkish consumers' willingness to pay for a label that guarantees that pesticide residues in foods do not cause health problems. Contingent valuation survey was conducted to 1005 randomly selected households to elicit tomato purchasing behavior under alternative prices and residue scenarios. A tobit model was used to estimate a demand model. To determine the probability of purchase, a probit model was estimated.


The nitrogen (N) flows in the Omoigawa and Nakagawa river basins in Tochigi prefecture, central Japan, in 2000 have been estimated. Omoigawa was characterized as a paddy rice – upland field area and Nakagawa as an intensive livestock farming area. Residual N caused by agricultural production in Omoigawa was caused mainly by chemical fertilizer application and that in Nakagawa by livestock excreta. Residual N from agricultural production per farmland area was the same (c. 110 kg N ha –1 ), and occupation of farmland was also the same (c. 20%). Because Omoigawa is a smaller river basin than Nakagawa, total residual N in Omoigawa was 2,093 Mg and that in Nakagawa was 2,469 Mg. Nitrogen flow in river water was divided into sewage-derived N and non-point-source-derived N, mainly from agricultural production. Nonpoint-source N in Omoigawa was 2,467 Mg and that in Nakagawa was 1,426 Mg, in spite of the smaller residual N in Omoigawa. This difference might be caused by differences in sources of residual N in each basin, and chemicalfertilizer-derived N might be more easily leached to the water environment than livestock-excreta-derived N. This difference should be considered in vulnerability assessments of water environments. However, livestock excreta N will eventually leach out too, so intensive livestock farming cannot be said to have a lower effect on water environments and be more sustainable than chemical-fertilizer-dependent agriculture. Increasing sustainability and reducing impacts will help achieve complete N cycling in river basins with minimal N input from outside.


Harnessing neutrophils for the eradication of cancer cells remains an attractive but still controversial notion. In this study, we provide evidence that neutrophils are required to prevent relapse of skin tumors following topical treatment with a new anticancer agent, ingenol-3-angelate (PEP005). Topical PEP005 treatment induces primary necrosis of tumor cells, potently activates protein kinase C, and was associated with an acute T cell-independent inflammatory response characterized by a pronounced neutrophil infiltrate. In Foxn1nu mice depleted of neutrophils and in CD18-deficient mice (in which neutrophil extravasation is severely impaired) PEP005 treatment was associated with a >70% increase in tumor relapse rates. NK cell or monocyte/macrophage deficiency had no effect on relapse rates. Both in vitro and in mice, PEP005 induced MIP-2/IL-8, TNF-α, and IL-1β, all mediators of neutrophil recruitment and activation. In vitro, PEP005 activated human endothelial cells resulting in neutrophil adhesion and also induced human neutrophils to generate tumoricidal-reactive oxygen intermediates. Treatment of tumors with PEP005 significantly elevated the level of anticancer Abs, which were able to promote neutrophil-mediated Ab-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) in vitro. PEP005 treatment of tumors grown in SCID mice was also associated with >70% increase in tumor relapse rates. Taken together, these data suggest a central role for neutrophil-mediated ADCC in preventing relapse. PEP005-mediated cure of tumors therefore appears to involve initial chemoablation followed by a neutrophil-dependent ADCC-mediated eradication of residual disease, illustrating that neutrophils can be induced to mediate important anticancer activity with specific chemotherapeutic agents.


This paper presents a method for information systems (IS) strategy formulation that is suitable for SMEs. The method involves the merging of insights and determinations from two complementary perspectives on the future IS needs of an SME, and hence the name "Dual Lens Approach". One of the perspectives is strategic and top-down, while the other perspective is focused on business process analysis and modelling, and tends to be more bottom-up in its approach and viewpoint. A case study describing an application of the method is also presented. The case study gives an insight into the issues involved in using the method in practice. Keyword: Information Systems strategy, SMEs, Business Process Analysis, Cognitive Mapping


This essay is a contribution to the book discussion of Timed Out: Art and the Transnational Caribbean (2011) by Leon Wainwright. Kempadoo offers an exploration and commentary on the way Wainwright's publication has been structured and conceived, exploring the rationale for the range of artists as the subjects of the book. She discusses "timing" and temporality as the central narrative for Wainwright in researching Caribbean art as transnational and comments on the implications and limitations of the publication in addressing the complexity of contemporary Caribbean visual art within the context of global art practices and set against more radical postcolonial art critique.


Cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus L.) has attracted attention because of many different usage such as fresh fruit production and processing material for medicinal and pharmacy industry. This study was carried out to obtain protocols for embryo culture of cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus L.). Cherry and black types of cherry laurel embryos were cultured on MS media. This study was organized in two stages. In the first experiment the effects of the hormone combinations BAP (1.0, 2.0, 4.0 or 6.0 mg/l) and IBA (0.5 or 1.0 mg/l) were investigated. Shoot formation was not observed in cherry type embryos. Shoot and root formation occurred from black type embryos but did not have enough length or quality for transfer to the acclimatization stage. Seedlings had rudimentary roots which did not show any growth even after their transfer to fresh media. The best hormone combination was 2.0+0.5 mg/l BAP+IBA for production of plantlets of both types. In the second experiment, two cold stratification times (30 or 60 days) were applied to embryos. The interaction between cold stratification time and hormone combinations was found important. Embryo germination rates and seedlings growth both increased in embryos stratified for 60 days. Embryos stratified for 30 days required high hormone concentration to continue to the next growth. Cold stratification and hormone combinations affected success in the growing and acclimatization stages. Embryo culture of cherry laurel prevented loss of material during the germination and shortened the time to obtain seedlings in the same season that the seeds were collected.


The data complexity and volume of astronomical findings have increased in recent decades due to major technological improvements in instrumentation and data collection methods. The contemporary astronomer is flooded with terabytes of raw data that produce enormous multidimensional catalogs of objects (stars, galaxies, quasars, etc.) numbering in the billions, with hundreds of measured numbers for each object. The astronomical community thus faces a key task: to enable efficient and objective scientific exploitation of enormous multifaceted data sets and the complex links between data and astrophysical theory. In recognition of this task, the National Virtual Observatory (NVO) initiative recently emerged to federate numerous large digital sky archives, and to develop tools to explore and understand these vast volumes of data. The effective use of such integrated massive data sets presents a variety of new challenging statistical and algorithmic problems that require methodological advances. An interdisciplinary team of statisticians, astronomers and computer scientists from The Pennsylvania State University, California Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon University is developing statistical methodology for the NVO. A brief glimpse into the Virtual Observatory and the work of the Penn State-led team is provided here.


The authors describe the 100 kW continuous-wave (CW) radio frequency free-electron laser at 10 mu m to be built at Boeing Defense and Space Group in collaboration with Los Alamos National Laboratory. The authors discuss the criteria which led to the selection of the operating point. The authors outline the single-accelerator master-oscillator power-amplifier concept. This approach and the wavelength were chosen on the basis of maximum cost-effectiveness, including utilization of existing hardware, reasonable technical risk, and potential for future applications. The major experimental goals for the average power laser experiment (APLE) program are discussed, and the expected performance is considered. >


Most radioactive waste emerges as well-defined waste streams from operating power reactors. The management of this is an on-going practice, based on comprehensive (IAEA) guidelines. A special waste category however consists of the historical waste from research reactors, mostly originating from various experiments in the early years of the nuclear era. Removal of the waste from the research site, often required by law, raises challenges: the waste packages must fulfill the acceptance criteria from the receiving storage site as well as the criteria for nuclear transports. Often the aged waste containers do not fulfill today's requirements anymore, and their contents are not well documented. Therefore removal of historical waste requires advanced characterization, sorting, sustainable repackaging and sometimes conditioning of the waste.This paper describes the Dutch experience of a historical waste removal campaign from the Petten High Flux research reactor. The reactor is still in operation, but Dutch legislation asks for central storage of all radioactive waste at the COVRA site in Vlissingen since the availability of the high- and intermediate-level waste storage facility HABOG in 2004.In order to comply with COVRA's acceptance criteria, the complex and mixed inventory of intermediate and low level waste must be characterized and conditioned, identifying the relevant nuclides and their activities. Sorting and segregation of the waste in a Hot Cell offers the possibility to reduce the environmental footprint of the historical waste, by repackaging it into different classes of intermediate and low level waste. In this way, most of the waste volume can be separated into lower level categories not needing to be stored in the HABOG, but in the less demanding LOG facility for low-level waste instead. The characterization and sorting is done on the basis of a combination of gamma scanning with high energy resolution of the closed waste canister and low-resolution localized gamma scanning inside a hot cell.A complicating factor is that the conditioning of the waste, consisting of compacting and cementing, would require such an extensive infrastructure at the Petten site, that it appeared to be more practical to have it executed by a foreign service provider. Therefore the waste packages have to comply with cross-border transport and waste acceptance criteria, and the national legislation of this service provider too.This paper describes this historical waste project, focusing on the fast and precise characterization approach, the expert system behind it, and the sorting and repackaging effort at the Petten site.Copyright © 2013 by ASME


Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a novel method for measuring changes in clay swelling in situ at the tactoid level in an aqueous environment. While the swelling process has been directly observed at the mesoscale level for multi-tactoid aggregates and the associated pores, no method to date has allowed the direct observation of swelling dynamics at the nanoscale. In initial proof-of-concept studies, individual tactoids of a Na-exchanged nontronite (NAu-1) were imaged in a solution of 5 mM NaCl. When multiple line profiles were examined on the same tactoid, the changes in height varied and depended on which layers of the profile were transected, and demonstrated that AFM analyses can be used to directly probe intratactoid heterogeneity in the swelling process. To better visualize this heterogeneity, a method was developed to restrict AFM images to include only the portions of a tactoid above a threshold height. A comparison of the changes in these images for multiple threshold values revealed that swelling in one part of a tactoid may occur simultaneously with compression in another portion, which suggests that the encroachment of layers into intra-tactoid micropores can partially compensate for the overall volume change. Finally, to demonstrate the ability of this technique to monitor in situ swelling changes as the surrounding aqueous environment is modified, a tactoid of K-montmorillonite (SWy-2) was monitored during cation exchange as a KCl solution was replaced with NaCl. After exchange, a transition from the crystalline swelling regime to the osmotic regime was observed. Subsequent height profiles were unchanged for a period of several hours and indicated that the AFM measurements were stable in the absence of changes to the aqueous phase composition. Because this technique is the first method that allows the swelling of a single tactoid to be monitored in an aqueous solution, it complements the ensemble-averaged data obtained from diffraction and scattering techniques.


While the development and plasticity of excitatory synaptic connections have been studied into detail, little is known about the development of inhibitory synapses. As proposed for excitatory synapses, recent studies have indicated that activity-dependent forms of synaptic plasticity, such as long-term potentiation and long-term depression, may play a role in the establishment of functional inhibitory synaptic connections. Here, I review these different forms of plasticity and focus on their possible role in the developing neuronal network.


Purpose of review Accurate staging of renal cell carcinoma is essential for patient care. The current staging system provides a common language to describe extent of disease, stratifies surveillance requirements, provides prognostic information, and selects patients for adjuvant clinical trials. We describe the current tumor, nodes, metastasis system, existing problems and controversies, and introduce integrated staging systems such as the University of California, Los Angeles Integrated Staging System and the Stage, Size, Grade, and Necrosis scoring algorithm. Important differences in the utility of the commonly used nomograms are briefly outlined. Recent findings Several recent reports have demonstrated problems with the current tumor, nodes, metastasis staging system, especially for patients with advanced disease. A revision of the 2002 tumor, nodes, metastasis system is expected in the next few years and may incorporate some of these findings. Additionally, several new integrated staging systems have been introduced which can aid in clinical decisions. Many of the current nomograms and scoring algorithms have been externally validated and have higher accuracy than the tumor, nodes, metastasis system alone. Summary Knowledge of renal cell carcinoma staging is necessary for clinicians to accurately counsel patients. Several adjuvant trials rely on these staging systems for patient selection criteria. Continued refinements in the tumor, nodes, metastasis system and integrated staging systems should ultimately lead to improved care.


BACKGROUND
Women with extensive dense breast tissue visible on a mammogram have a risk of breast cancer that is 1.8 to 6.0 times that of women of the same age with little or no density. Menopausal status, weight, and parity account for 20 to 30 percent of the age-adjusted variation in the percentage of dense tissue.

METHODS
We undertook two studies of twins to determine the proportion of the residual variation in the percentage of density measured by mammography that can be explained by unmeasured additive genetic factors (heritability). A total of 353 pairs of monozygotic twins and 246 pairs of dizygotic twins were recruited from the Australian Twin Registry, and 218 pairs of monozygotic twins and 134 pairs of dizygotic twins were recruited in Canada and the United States. Information on putative determinants of breast density was obtained by questionnaire. Mammograms were digitized, randomly ordered, and read by a blinded investigator.

RESULTS
After adjustment for age and measured covariates, the correlation coefficient for the percentage of dense tissue was 0.61 for monozygotic pairs in Australia, 0.67 for monozygotic pairs in North America, 0.25 for dizygotic pairs in Australia, and 0.27 for dizygotic pairs in North America. According to the classic twin model, heritability (the proportion of variants attributable to additive genetic factors) accounted for 60 percent of the variation in density (95 percent confidence interval, 54 to 66) in Australian twins, 67 percent (95 percent confidence interval, 59 to 75) in North American twins, and 63 percent (95 percent confidence interval, 59 to 67) in all twins studied.

CONCLUSIONS
These results show that the population variation in the percentage of dense tissue on mammography at a given age has high heritability. Because mammographic density is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer, finding the genes responsible for this phenotype could be important for understanding the causes of the disease.


In the United Kingdom (UK), it is recommended to universally offer antenatal infection screening for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B and syphilis infections, and susceptibility to rubella for the benefit of the mother and to reduce vertical transmission of infection. This paper describes the surveillance of antenatal infection including uptake of screening, and the results of testing in pregnant women in London between 2000 and 2007. Antenatal screening coordinators in liaison with midwifery heads and microbiologists at all thirty London National Health Service (NHS) Trust maternity units supplied quarterly data on the number of pregnant women booked for antenatal care, tests done, and tests results. The overall estimated uptake of screening increased since 2000 and reached 95.6% for HIV, 96.5% for syphilis, 96.2% for hepatitis B and 97% for rubella susceptibility by the second half of 2007. There is considerable variation in the performance between NHS Trusts. The overall estimated prevalence of HIV infection was 3.4/1,000 women (ranging from <1/1,000 to 10/1,000 across Trusts), of hepatitis B (HBsAg-positive) was 11.3/1,000 (2.6/1,000- 23.9/1,000), of syphilis was 4.4/1,000 (<1/1,000-16.3/1,000) and of rubella susceptibility was 39.3/1,000 (19-103/1,000). Antenatal infection screening has improved and there has been some success in implementation of national policy. However, screening uptake and prevalence of infection vary considerably across London NHS Trusts and some women are evidently disadvantaged. Improvements in information systems should help local partners to focus their interventions in those Trusts where work is still needed to increase testing as well as the capacity to monitor the uptake of screening.


This paper describes the policy-based management architecture devised for management of IP over WDM networks and is part of the work carried out in the IST Project WINMAN, whose aim is to develop and validate an open and flexible integrated management system for this type of networks. The IETF has been working in the policy based management area, through two of its groups, in order to provide the means for managing IP based networks, offering some QoS guarantees. At the same time hybrid networks such as those placing IP directly over WDM are emerging as the solution to the increasing need for bandwidth. Management of such networks in an integrated fashion is a large research area. We are interested in integrating the policy management paradigm for managing integrated networks, such as IP over WDM networks.


p53 is a barrier to somatic cell reprogramming. Deletion or transient suppression of p53 increases the efficiency of reprogramming of somatic cells into induced pluripotent stem cells. Whether p53 represents an obstacle to a similar process transdifferentiation of somatic cells is unknown. However, it is predicted that inhibition of p53 would promote transdifferentiation of fibroblasts into cardiomyocytes. In this study, the effect of p53 on the capacity of cardiogenic transdifferentiation is evaluated using p53 wild-type (p53+/+), p53 heterozygous mutant (p53+/-), and p53 homozygous mutant (p53-/-) mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs). Repression of p53 in MEFs increases the expression level of mesoderm transcription factors Brachyury (T) and MESP1. The cardiac-specific markers, Myh6 (Myosin, Heavy Chain 6), Myh7 (Myosin, Heavy Chain 7), and cTnI (cardiac muscle troponin I), show elevated expression in p53+/- and p53-/- MEFs compared with wild-type MEFs, but cardiac muscle troponin T (cTnT) showed a lower expression level when p53 was inhibited. After induction to cardiac differentiation, cTnT expression increased and markers of endoderm and ectoderm decreased in p53+/- and p53-/- MEFs. The effect of an important reprogramming factor Oct4 on cardiac transdifferentiation was also evaluated in the allelic series of p53 MEFs. We found that overexpression of Oct4 significantly enhanced Mesp1, Tbx5, and Isl1 expression in p53+/+ and p53+/- MEFs. Oct4 also enhanced cTnT expression in all three cell lines, especially in p53+/- MEFs. Thus, inhibition of p53 expression and viral expression of Oct4 both promote transdifferentiation of MEFs into cardiomyocytes, establishing reciprocity of action in the process.


The future 5G transport networks are envisioned to support a variety of vertical services through network slicing and efficient orchestration over multiple administrative domains. In this paper, we propose an orchestrator architecture to support vertical services to meet their diverse resource and service requirements. We then present a system model for resource orchestration of transport networks as well as low-complexity algorithms that aim at minimizing service deployment cost and/or service latency. Importantly, the proposed model can work with any level of abstractions exposed by the underlying network or the federated domains depending on their representation of resources.


Abstract As long-term residents in Wagu village of Papua New Guinea, the authors were privileged to observe language shift and death on a small scale over more than forty years in one village. During that time, one language has died, another has now reached the point of no return, and a third language that initially seemed less likely to succeed there actually continues in full use in the village today. This paper documents the processes that led to language shift in this one small village.


This chapter highlights concept construction. All social sciences research projects, be they qualitative or quantitative, are dependent on concepts. The chapter first explains what concepts are and why social scientists should be self-conscious in the way they use them. It then describes the methodology of concept construction and presents three different ways to structure a concept. Finally, the chapter provides criteria to evaluate the quality of the concepts we have built ourselves or borrowed from others. Concept construction involves two basic operations beyond choosing a term to designate the concept: identifying the fundamental characteristics of the phenomenon of interest, and logically connecting these characteristics.


Fluorescent lipid analogue 3,3'-dioctadecyloxacarbocyanine incorporated into biological membranes was used to induce photoactivation of a hydrophobic probe 5-[125I]iodonaphthyl-1-azide (125INA) by energy transfer and to thereby confine subsequent radiolabelling of proteins to the lipid bilayer. This approach was applied in bovine chromaffin cells to discover cytosolic proteins that reversibly penetrate into membrane domains. alpha-Glutathione S-transferase (alpha-GST) was identified as the only labelled protein in bovine chromaffin-cell cytosol, indicating that it inserts reversibly into the membrane lipid bilayer. The selectivity of the labelling towards the lipid bilayer is demonstrated by showing that influenza virus haemagglutinin becomes labelled by 125INA only after the insertion of this protein into the target membrane. The molar 125INA:protein ratio was used as a quantitative criterion for evaluation of the penetration of proteins into the membrane lipid bilayer. This ratio was calculated for four integral membrane proteins and four soluble proteins that interact with biological membranes. The values for four integral membrane proteins (erythrocyte anion transporter, multidrug transporter gp-170, dopamine transporter and fusion-competent influenza virus haemagglutinin) were 1, 8, 2 and 2, respectively, whereas for soluble proteins (annexin VII, protein kinase C, BSA and influenza virus haemagglutinin) the values were 0.002, 0, 0.002 and 0.02, respectively. The molar ratio for alpha-GST was found to be 1, compatible with the values obtained for integral membrane proteins.


Over the last couple of years there were, nationally, as well as internationally, several controversial cases in which science or scientists were under fire. Characteristic for these cases is that the discussion had repercussions on science as a whole. Some public experts even claim that the authority of science is waning.
However, the question is what really is at stake in these cases and whether it is scientific authority in decline or if something else is going on. This study deals with this question from the perspective of stakeholders and investigates what they construct as being at stake in a case where scientific authority seems to be in decline. These stakeholder views, and the differences
between stakeholders, will be used to explain the origin of the discussion and give insight in what role scientific authority played according to the stakeholders.
The case used for this study is the discussion about the introduction of the HPV-vaccination, a vaccination for twelve-year old girls against a group of viruses that cause cervical cancer. The discussion about the vaccination has been fierce and it is often used as an example of scientific authority in decline. The method used to explore the views of the stakeholders in the discussion about the HPV-vaccination is that of semi-structured interviews.
Literature on the role of science in society shows that there are many aspects that play a role in
the troubled relation between scientific experts and the public. The theoretical framework gives
an overview of what might be at stake in a discussion where scientific authority seems to be in disrepute, along with the solutions that are mentioned to improve the relation between public experts and the public.
The interview results show that there are several causes defined for the discussion. The opinions of anti-vaccination movements are dismissed as non-scientific, while they want to join the scientific discussion. One-sided government communication has lead to irritation among antivaccination movements. Public communication of the vaccine producers has lead to suspicion among the public. Furthermore the decline of scientific authority seems to be a way for public experts to describe the diminishing of the self-evident authority that used to flow from their status as expert.
The results reveal the need for a discussion on what is expected from scientific authority in cases such as the HPV-vaccination and what role scientific experts should play in the decision-making process. Furthermore public experts should work on building trustworthiness instead of merely pointing to deficits of the public. A final important implication is that vaccine producers should
reflect on their own role in causing the discussion, something that has been lacking so far.


A rainfall erosivity model using daily rainfall amounts to estimate rainfall erosivity was tested for 29 sites in New South Wales to see whether such a model could adequately describe the temporal variation and seasonal distribution of rainfall erosivity. The coefficient of determination varied from 0.57 to 0.97 and the average discrepancy between actual and estimated seasonal distribution was no more than 3%. A set of parameter values for sites without pluviograph data was recommended for New South Wales. With this set of recommended parameter values, the percentage of total variance explained was decreased to 44%-89% for the 29 sites. Large errors, however, can occur when estimating extreme storm erosivity with large return periods. The daily erosivity model could be used for determining the seasonal distribution of rainfall erosivity or for simulating changes to rainfall erosivity as part of climate change impacts assessment.


The prediction of drug hypersensitivity is difficult due to the lack of appropriate models and known risk factors. In vitro naïve T cell priming assays that assess immunogenicity have been developed. However, their application is limited due requirements for two batches of autologous dendritic cells (DC) and inconsistent results; a consequence of single well readouts when exploring reactions where compound-specific T-cell frequency is undefined. Hence, we aimed to develop an improved, but simplified assay, termed the T cell multiple well assay (T-MWA), that permits assessment of drug-specific activation of naive T cells, alongside analysis of the strength of the induced response and the number of cultures that respond. DC naïve T cell co-culture, depleted of Tregs, was conducted in up to 48 wells for two weeks with model haptens (nitroso sulfamethoxazole [SMX-NO], Bandrowski's base [BB] or piperacillin [PIP]). Cultures were re-challenged with hapten and T cell proliferation was measured using [3H]-thymidine incorporation. Priming of naïve T cells was observed with SMX-NO, with no requirement for DC during restimulation. Greater than 65% of cultures were activated with SMX-NO; with 8.0, 30.8 and 27.2% characterized as weak (stimulation index (SI)=1.5-1.9), moderate (SI = 2-3.9) and strong responses (SI > 4), respectively. The number of responding cultures and strength of the response was reproducible when separate blood donations were compared. Co-inhibitory checkpoint blockade increased the strength of the proliferative response, but not the number of responding cultures. Moderate to strong priming responses were detected with BB, while PIP stimulated only a small number of cultures to proliferate weakly. In drug-responsive cultures inducible CD4+CD25+FoxP3+CD127low Tregs were also identified. To conclude, the T-MWA offers improvements over existing assays and with development it could be used to study multiple HLA-typed donors in a single plate format.


Two likely mechanisms for the initiation of arterial platelet thrombus formation under conditions of elevated fluid shear stresses are: (1) excessive adhesion and aggregation of platelets from rapidly flowing blood onto the exposed sub-endothelium of injured, atherosclerotic arteries; or (2) direct, fluid shear stress-induced aggregation of platelets in constricted arteries with intact endothelial cells. Mechanism (1) was simulated using a parallel plate flow chamber, fibrillar collagen type I-coated slides, and mepacrine-labeled (fluorescent) platelets in whole blood anticoagulated with citrate, hirudin, unfractionated porcine heparin, or low molecular weight heparin flowing for 1 to 2 minutes at wall shear rates of 100 to 3,000 seconds-1 (4 to 120 dynes/cm2). The precise sequence of interactions among von Willebrand factor (vWF), glycoprotein (GP)Ib, and GPIIb-IIIa during platelet adhesion and subsequent aggregation were resolved by direct real-time observation using a computerized epifluorescence video microscopy system. Adhesion at high shear rates was the result of the adsorption of large vWF multimers onto collagen and the binding of platelet GPIb to the insolubilized vWF. Aggregation occurred subsequently and required the binding of ligands, including vWF via its RGD binding domain, to GPIIb-IIIa. Mechanism (2) was modeled by producing shear stresses of 90 to 180 dynes/cm2 in a rotational cone and plate viscometer, which aggregates platelets from platelet-rich-plasma (PRP) anti-coagulated with citrate, hirudin, or either type of heparin in reactions that require large vWF multimers, Ca2+, adenosine diphosphate, and both GPIb and GPIIb-IIIa. Both vWF-mediated shear-aggregation in PRP and platelet-collagen adhesion in flowing whole blood (anticoagulated with citrate and hirudin) are inhibited by two potentially useful anti-arterial thrombotic agents: polymeric aurin tricarboxylic acid (ATA; 28.5 to 114 micrograms/mL), which binds to vWF and inhibits its attachment of GPIb, and a recombinant vWF fragment (rvWF445-733; 30 to 200 micrograms/mL) that binds to platelet GPIb (in the absence of any modulator) and blocks attachment of vWF multimers. Unfractionated heparin, but not low molecular weight heparin, apparently binds to rvWF445-733 and counteracts the inhibitory effects of the vWF fragment in vitro on shear-aggregation and platelet-collagen adhesion.


Further laboratory studies carried out on 30 patients diagnosed as RP!! by the clinical evabiation. The levels of hormones that are thought ta be critical on the ethiology of 13P11 vere determin,,I and compared with those of 16 healthy control group. Overall reduction in testosteron and an increase in the levels of, follicle stimulating horrnones, luteinizing horrnones was found tobe statistically significant.


Case series Patients: Female, 52-year-old • Female, 76-year-old Final Diagnosis: Euglycemic diabetic ketoacidosis • myocardial infarction • sinus node dysfunction Symptoms: Unconsciousness • vomiting Medication: — Clinical Procedure: Hemodialysis • pacemaker insertion Specialty: Critical Care Medicine • Endocrinology and Metabolic Objective: Unusual clinical course Background: Sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT2is) are widely used owing to their effective glycemic control and protective effects against heart and kidney failure. Euglycemic diabetic ketoacidosis (eu-DKA) is a complication of treatment with SGLT2is. Eu-DKA often leads to delayed diagnosis and results in life-threatening complications. We report 2 critical cases of SGLT2i-associated eu-DKA. Case Reports: Case 1 was 52-year-old woman with unstable angina scheduled for elective coronary artery bypass grafting surgery. Preoperatively, she underwent tooth extraction which led to poor food intake because of pain. Three days before surgery, the patient had SGLT2i-associated eu-DKA and myocardial infraction, requiring percutaneous coronary intervention and peripheral venoarterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. The patient had taken SGLT2i until the morning of admission to the intensive care unit. Case 2 was a 76-year-old woman experiencing SGLT2i-associated eu-DKA and sinus arrest, necessitating a temporary pacemaker, followed by elective gastrojejunal bypass surgery. The SGLT2i was discontinued the day before surgery. On day 3 following surgery, the patient's metabolic acidosis improved, and sinus arrest resolved. Conclusions: Precipitating factors of eu-DKA (caloric restriction and surgical stress) and delay in diagnosis because of a lack of evidence of hyperglycemia could contribute to the development and worsening of life-threatening complications. This reiterates the importance of reviewing ongoing medications of patients with diabetes and considering eu-DKA as a differential diagnosis for patients with high anion gap metabolic acidosis to ensure early intervention. SGLT2i-associated DKA likely develops perioperatively; therefore, clinicians should pay attention to the discontinuation period of SGLT2i before any surgical intervention.


From the very first age of invention, synchronous generator is dominating the power generation system. At present, new demand has been raised to get secured and stable power supply. For the increasing demand, renewable energy sources are started contributing in power supply. In this system inverter plays a vital role. But inverter cannot give smooth transition especially when it is connected in a large number. On the other hand, synchronous generator can provide smooth transition. By connecting this idea with inverter, synchroconvertor concept has been developed. In this paper, concept, component and mathematical modeling of synchroconverter has shown for further implementation of this system. To know the behavior of synchronous generator it is necessary to model it and this behavior will be implemented in synchroconverter to mimic it as synchronous generator. So our main focus is to model and simulate synchronous generator. For modeling of generator, existing mathematical equations have been used and for the simulation MATLAB software has been used. This paper will help for further work in the implementation of synchroconverter by providing results carried out by the modeling of synchronous generator.


Common content knowledge (CCK) is comprised of the knowledge of rules, techniques, and tactics and can be used to define the scope of what teachers teach in their lessons. Developing reliable and valid measures of teacher knowledge such as CCK strengthens our understanding of what teachers know and in turn the field's ability to help teachers in their practice. There are, however, few validated tests of CCK of sport for teachers. The primary purpose of this study was to provide content and concurrent validity evidence for a 19-question test of the CCK for gymnastics required in Turkish elementary and secondary schools. Participants were 240 preservice teachers who had previously taken a class in content knowledge for gymnastics in six state universities. Rasch modeling was used to evaluate the validity and reliability of the CCK gymnastics test. Results indicated good item model fit for all 19 items. High internal consistency for item difficulty and high internal consistency for person-ability were obtained. Overall analysis showed good evidence to support the validity and reliability of the CCK gymnastics test. The CCK test can be used in initial teacher education and continuing professional development to determine the CCK knowledge of preservice and inservice teachers and in turn a measure of what they learn from professional development efforts.


: The aim of the study was to evaluate effect of adaptation to periodic hypoxia in pressure chamber (PHPC) on the serum lipid profile in 45 patients with myocardial infarction (MI) in the period of scarring compared with physical exercises (15 patients). Adaptive therapy was shown to cause significant decrease of total cholesterol, LDLP, triglicerides, and atherogenic index. A course of PHPC resulted in a significant 6.6% fall of serum apoA1 (major component of HDLP). Examination of the serum lipid profile in control patients with MI demonstrated a 4% decrease of the ApoA1/ApoB ratio compared with its value in the PHPC group despite positive dynamics of the parameters of cholesterol metabolism being measured. Taken together, these data suggest the lack of positive changes at the level of major pathways of cholesterol metabolism.


Although youth in many Western countries have been afforded enhanced legal protections when facing police interrogations, the effectiveness of these protections may be limited by youth's inability to comprehend them. The ability to increase the comprehension of Canadian interrogation rights among youth through the simplification of waiver forms was assessed. High school students (N = 367) in grades 9, 10, and 11 were presented with one of three waiver forms that varied in level of complexity. Comprehension of the information in the forms was assessed using free recall and multiple-choice questions. Results showed that comprehension levels increased as waiver form complexity decreased and comprehension levels increased as the age of the youth increased. The implications of these findings for the development of comprehensible youth interrogation rights are discussed.


Hollow-sphere ZnSe is successfully obtained through Ostwald ripening. Carbon nanoparticles are designed and utilized to form a wrapped carbon network as a conductive buffering matrix by subsequent annealing. The ZnSe/C composites, as anode materials for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), exhibit excellent Li+ storage properties, delivering a high reversible capacity of 573.7 mA h g−1 at 1.0 A g−1 after 800 cycles. Even upon increasing the high current density to 20.0 A g−1, the reversible capacity can achieve 318.8 mA h g−1 after 5000 cycles. The superior rate capability is confirmed through the current density return from 20.0 to 1.0 A g−1, and ZnSe/C composites still recover up to 469 mA h g−1, with a retention of 92%. The enhanced electrochemical performances of ZnSe/C composites are attributed to the unique structure and the introduction of conductive carbon networks, which can improve the Li+ diffusion coefficient in the insertion and extraction process. Furthermore, the interconnected network also alleviates the volume variation during cycling and further enhances the structural stability.


In Traghetti del Mediterraneo SpA in Liquidation v. Italian Republic, the European Court of Justice (EG) ruled that Community law precludes the existence of two types of national rules that limit State liability: (1) rules that exclude liability for damages due to an infringement of Community law that arises out of an interpretation of legal provisions or an assessment of facts or evidence carried out by a court adjudicating at last instance, or (2) those limiting liability solely to cases of intentional fault and serious misconduct on the part of the court, if such a limitation were to lead to exclusion of the liability of the Member State in other cases where a manifest infringement of the applicable law was committed. This article, while recognizing that the ruling in Traghetti del Mediterraneo is in line with previous case-law on Member States' liability for breach of EU law, casts some doubts as to whether such an invasion of an area traditionally regulated by national law is in fact desirable. It questions what the foundations are of the procedural rights conferred by European law, and, in doing so, the extent to which European law can tamper with the constitutional balance of a state. Finally, it provides some tentative solutions to the dilemma faced by Italian law following the delivery of the Traghetti del Mediterraneo judgement.


This conceptual exploration revisits a key question from earlier work (Greenhow & Gleason, 2014): What is scholarship reconsidered in the age of social media? Social scholarship is a framework that expanded Boyers' (1990) conceptualization of scholarship to consider how social media affect discovery and research, teaching and learning, integration, and application. This paper critically reflects on how social scholarship continues to evolve in light of changing understandings in the field of educational technology and the role social media play in the academy. We provide recent examples of social scholarship such as altmetrics, interdisciplinary projects, crowdsourced educational technology syllabi and reconsideration of the needs of research participants. Moreover, we share concrete examples of how scholars might enact social scholarship, with what benefits and challenges, and surface new concerns regarding openness, equity, access, literacy, privacy and ethical considerations. Our paper concludes with recommendations for preparing scholars to enact social scholarship while mitigating the challenges it poses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]


Dense video captioning is an extremely challenging task since an accurate and faithful description of events in a video requires a holistic knowledge of the video contents as well as contextual reasoning of individual events. Most existing approaches handle this problem by first proposing event boundaries from a video and then captioning on a subset of the proposals. Generation of dense temporal annotations and corresponding captions from long videos can be dramatically source consuming. In this paper, we focus on the task of generating a dense description of temporally untrimmed videos and aim to significantly reduce the computational cost by processing fewer frames while maintaining accuracy. Existing video captioning methods sample frames with a predefined frequency over the entire video or use all the frames. Instead, we propose a deep reinforcement-based approach which enables an agent to describe multiple events in a video by watching a portion of the frames. The agent needs to watch more frames when it is processing an informative part of the video, and skip frames when there is redundancy. The agent is trained using actor-critic algorithm, where the actor determines the frames to be watched from a video and the critic assesses the optimality of the decisions taken by the actor. Such an efficient frame selection simplifies the event proposal task considerably. This has the added effect of reducing the occurrence of unwanted proposals. The encoded state representation of the frame selection agent is further utilized for guiding event proposal and caption generation tasks. We also leverage the idea of knowledge distillation to improve the accuracy. We conduct extensive evaluations on ActivityNet captions dataset to validate our method.


Machining is one of the most prominent manufacturing methods in automobile, aerospace and marine industries. The materials which are frequently consumed in such industries are hard to machine through conventional techniques. Therefore, it requires sophisticated process approaches and better cooling and lubrication environment. Hence, industries trend to use petroleum oil based MWFs because of the better cooling and lubrication properties. However, petroleum oil based MWFs express adverse health and environment effect throughout their lifecycle. Authors have formulated a white coconut oil based MWF as an alternative to the hazardous petroleum oil based MWF. The performance of the novel white coconut oil based MWF was evaluated via MQL approach for Inconel 718 and AISI 304. Machining experiments were conducted to investigate work tool interface temperature, cutting forces and compared them with commercially available MWF. Favorable results for the work tool interface temperature and cutting forces were obtained for the newly formulated MWF compared to the industrial available petroleum oil based MWF. Hence, the industrial applicability of the formulated MWF was confirmed for the selected cutting specifications for both work materials.


It is often said (on the backs of books, or on the internet – so it must be true) that Patti Smith is the godmother of punk poetry and John Cooper Clarke the godfather. In this paper I want to investigate what it is about their literature that we can read in relation to Punk as a philosophy, aesthetic and cultural movement and all the other adjectives we might associate with the term. However, I won't only be considering poetry, in fact, following the success of her biographies, I will also be considering Patti Smith's prose work (so I am not sticking to the rules at a punk conference, is this a surprise to anyone?). Another aspect of this paper is to explore the recent popularity of both of these artists/writers/musicians – whose careers each span each of these titles, and to think about how we can understand and interpret that in relation to our considerations of all things punk today. Therefore, I hope to address the issue as to the notion of inspiration (hence godparent) versus influence/heritage (thus grandparent).


Despite the best efforts of conservationists worldwide, species extinction risks continue to rise. It is predicted that under intermediate climate warming scenarios 15-37% of species will be committed to extinction by 2050. This, coupled with limited funding and resources, means conservation management must be prioritised. Population viability analysis (PVA) models can help prioritisation by providing estimates of extinction risks for species. However, at present the availability of avian life history data and population data is limited, which makes this analysis challenging. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to collate and calculate the necessary data so PVA models can be run for all bird species of the world.
We begin by looking at what density data is available for species because these underpin much of our understanding of the extinction risks, as they are directly linked to population sizes and population sizes are known to be highly correlated with extinction. We collate field densities for approximately 30% of all avian species and then implement a Generalised Linear Model (GLM) to calculate densities for the remaining species. In total, densities are modelled for 8,541 species with a 37% accuracy. We then use these densities, along with distribution polygons and habitat data, to calculate population sizes for 6,206 species with a 55% accuracy. Finally, as survival estimates are a key demographic parameter to include in PVA models, we calculate these for 5,291 species with a 36% accuracy.
Having calculated densities, population sizes and survival rates for over half of the worlds birds, we conclude that this is a huge step forward in being able to calculate extinction risks for many species. However, we highlight throughout that accuracy could be improved with more data collection, and fundamentally some data are still crucially missing if we want to run PVA models. Therefore, we suggest further research should aim to collect more avian data, such as fecundity, so simple PVA models can be run. For those species with the highest extinction risks we suggest even more data is collected, so more complex models, which include the effects of stochasticity, genetics and climate change can be run. We believe if robust and reliable data can be collected and included in PVA models, the results would be truly informative and insightful for conservation management and prioritisation.


Energy constraint is an important issue in wireless sensor networks. This paper proposes a distributed energy optimization method for target tracking applications. Sensor nodes are clustered by maximum entropy clustering. Then, the sensing field is divided for parallel sensor deployment optimization. For each cluster, the coverage and energy metrices are calculated by grid exclusion algorithm and Dijkstra's algorithm, respectively. Cluster heads perform parallel particle swarm optimization to maximize the coverage metric and minimize the energy metric. Particle filter is improved by combing the radial basis function network, which constructs the process model. Thus, the target position is predicted by the improved particle filter. Dynamic awakening and optimal sensing scheme are then discussed in dynamic energy management mechanism. A group of sensor nodes which are located in the vicinity of the target will be awakened up and have the opportunity to report their data. The selection of sensor node is optimized considering sensing accuracy and energy consumption. Experimental results verify that energy efficiency of wireless sensor network is enhanced by parallel particle swarm optimization, dynamic awakening approach, and sensor node selection.


Abstract Metaphors are a fundamental aspect of human cognition. The major neuropsychological hypothesis that metaphoric processing relies primarily on the right hemisphere is not confirmed consistently. We propose ways to advance our understanding of the neuropsychology of metaphor that go beyond simple laterality. Neuropsychological studies need to more carefully control confounding lexical and sentential factors, and consider the role of different parts of speech as they are extended metaphorically. They need to incorporate recent theoretical frameworks such as the career of metaphor theory, and address factors such as novelty. We also advocate the use of new methods such as voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping, which permits precise and formal tests of hypotheses correlating behavior with lesions sites. Finally, we outline a plausible model for the neural basis of metaphor. (JINS, 2010, 16, 1–5.)


A new approach for robotics perception, rooted in the sensorimotor paradigm, is proposed in this paper. Making systems able to autonomously adapt themselves to changes in their own body or in their environment is still a challenging question for many different scientific communities. Multiple works propose either sophisticated adaptive model-based or learning-based techniques as a solution. Recent contributions have shown that it is possible for an agent to discover the structure of its interaction with the environment or its own body via the so-called sensorimotor flow. The presented work is based on this idea, and a method for building an internal representation of sensorimotor interaction is proposed, which does not require any a priori knowledge or model. A careful mathematical formalization is outlined, together with simulations, demonstrating the effectiveness of the approach. Several cases are considered allowing for a general discussion. Moreover, plausibility of the internal sensorimotor representation is highlighted by showing that it is possible to consider motion planning directly from it.


Are we underestimating the costs of patent protection? Scholars have long recognized that patent law is a double-edged sword. While patents promote innovation, they also limit the number of people who can benefit from new inventions. In the past, policymakers striving to balance the costs and benefits of patents have analyzed patent law through the lens of traditional, neoclassical economics. This Article argues that this approach is fundamentally flawed because traditional economics relies on an inaccurate oversimplification: that individuals and firms always maximize profits. In actuality, so-called "productive inefficiencies" often prevent profit maximization. For example, cognitive biases, bounded rationality, habituation, and opportunism all contribute to productive inefficiencies that harm individuals, firms, and ultimately society. Moreover, a variety of theoretical analyses and empirical studies demonstrate that robust competition reduces productive inefficiencies. Consequently, patents that substantially limit competition exacerbate productive inefficiencies, and an important effect of patent law has been systematically overlooked. This Article begins to fill this void and demonstrates that consideration of productive inefficiencies sheds new light on numerous unresolved and contentious debates in patent law.


Aim: Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) which is mostly cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions of the world is an important source of sucrose. This crop which was originally grown in South Eastern Asia and the Pacific for the sole purpose of chewing is mainly used nowadays for the production of sugar, bio-fuels, medicine etc. In spite of its numerous uses, the production of sugarcane in Buea, South West region of Cameroon is hampered by many factors including the incidence of disease. It is possible that some varieties are no longer cultivated because of their susceptibility to fungal diseases. It was for these reasons that we decided to survey the sugarcane farms in this area, to evaluate the presence of diseased symptoms due to activity of fungi.
Study Design: Random sampling.
Place and Duration of Study: Buea and its environs, Rubber Pathology Laboratory IRAD Ekona, and Life Sciences Laboratory, University of Buea, between June 2016 and July 2017.
Methodology: During the survey, sugarcane farms in five villages in Buea and its environments were visited. The leaves and stems of the plants were observed for any symptoms of fungal activity. The incidence, severity and prevalence of the symptoms were noted. Leaf samples were collected from diseased sugarcane plants and transported to the laboratory for the isolation of fungi on Potato Dextrose Agar growth medium. The isolates were identified based on their cultural and micro-morphological characteristics.
Results: Sugarcane plants with fungal disease symptoms were seen in all the farms visited during the survey, thus a prevalence of 100%. The disease incidence varied from 54- 100%, while the severity ranged from 20- 55%. Two genera of fungi were isolated from the diseased plants viz: Chaetomium sp. and Bipolaris sp.
Conclusion: Chaetomium and Bipolaris are associated with fungal symptoms in diseased sugarcanes hence any management plans geared towards the improvement of sugarcane production in this area must include control measures for these fungi.


Challenges in the diagnostic process of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) can result in diagnostic misclassifications, including overdiagnosis. The term "overdiagnosis" in general has been associated with variable definitions. In connection with efforts to reduce low-value care, "overdiagnosis" has been defined as a true positive diagnosis of a condition that is not associated with any harm in the diagnosed person. It is, however, unclear how the term "overdiagnosis" is used in the COPD literature. We conducted a rapid review of the literature to explore how the terms "overdiagnosis" and "misdiagnosis" are used in the context of COPD. Electronic searches of Medline were conducted from inception to October 2018, to identify primary studies that reported on over- and/or misdiagnosis of COPD using these terms. 28 articles were included in this review. Overdiagnosis and misdiagnosis in COPD were found to be used to describe five main concepts: 1) physician COPD diagnosis despite normal spirometry (14 studies); 2) discordant results for COPD diagnosis based on different spirometry-based definitions for airflow obstruction (10 studies); 3) COPD diagnosis based on pre-bronchodilator spirometry results (three studies); 4) comorbidities (e.g. heart failure or asthma) that affect spirometry and have clinical features which overlap with COPD (two studies); and 5) normalisation of abnormal (post-bronchodilator) spirometry at follow-up (one study). The terms "overdiagnosis" and "misdiagnosis" were often used interchangeably and almost always referred to a false positive diagnosis. Performing (technically correct) spirometry with correct interpretation of the results could probably reduce misdiagnosis in a large proportion of the misdiagnosed cases of COPD. In addition, guidelines need to provide a more acceptable consensus spirometric definition of airflow obstruction. Key points In the COPD literature, the terms "overdiagnosis" and "misdiagnosis" are often used interchangeably and almost always refer to a false positive diagnosis. Use of spirometry with correct interpretation of the results can avoid a substantial proportion of cases of misdiagnosis of COPD. Educational aims To explore the use of the terms "overdiagnosis" and "misdiagnosis" in the COPD literature. To identify the main sources of overdiagnosis and misdiagnosis in COPD. Overdiagnosis in the COPD literature generally refers to a false positive diagnosis (misdiagnosis). Misdiagnosis can be significantly reduced by performing spirometry in every patient with suspected COPD. http://ow.ly/zuAw30o7hiV


The Baylis–Hillman reaction of HMF was investigated in various bio-based solvent systems and in water. Although pure water is able to promote the reaction, aqueous mixtures with ethanol, isopropanol, methyl-THF (MeTHF), tetrahydrofurfuryl-alcohol (THFA) show better overall efficacy for the HMF Baylis–Hillman reaction than pure water or the pure bio-based solvent. Such solvent systems can replace THF or dioxane, often used for BH reactions. However, pure bio-based solvents can be used in the case of the more polar glucosyloxymethylfurfural (GMF). These results show that the most appropriate medium must also take into account the polarity of the starting aldehyde.


A considerable volume of electrical and electronic printed circuit boards are manufactured, by the punching process, from paper based and glass fibre re-inforced laminates. The effects, of the constituent elements of GFR laminate, upon the punching characteristics of the board were studied by means of a specially designed press dynamometer located within a standard press-tool die set used on a mechanical crank press. Both hot and cold punching techniques were developed initially by the use of commercially supplied samples of both paper and GFR laminates.
Laboratory manufactured polyester laminates were produced with different resins, filler sizes and forms of glass fibre re-inforcement. These experimental boards were punched and analysed in respect to specific punching criteria and laminate punched quality. The punch quality (PQ) was assessed by a quanti tative technique using a magnified image of the punched contour and a graticule; the punch contour used was of a special design to incorporate the PQ requirements and provide the extreme crack propagation geometry. The surface density of the glass fibre re-inforcement was found to' be a primary factor influencing the main punch load and shear energy criteria used. The ladder stripping load required to remove the ladder from the punch was also investigated by means of a strain-gauged stripper-pad, and showed an important sensitivity to punching temperature, which could be utilized in industry when ladder stripping is a problem.
Additional to the main programme of work already outlined above, a series of test punchings were also made at different punch velocities on three other sets of equipment, one of which was an Instron testing machine using a punch and die accessory conforming to BS.2782 requirements for shear testing of plastic sheet etc. From this basic Instron shear load information a simple mathematical model was developed to quantify the relative shear energy functions of the different punching equipments used; for the crank press die-set the specific shear energy (SSE) absorbed was found to be considerably higher than for the remainder of the test rigs used, thus some consideration was given to this result. One factor influencing this result was found to be related to the punch/die clearance deduced from the re-plotted -punch data. Some suggestions for future punching research work have been made, particularly in respect to die-set punching energy and small hole production which could be of great significance to industrial PCB manufacturers.


Abstract We examine the relation between boards of directors' knowledge heterogeneity and organizational ambidexterity (OA) (i.e. simultaneous exploration and exploitation) in knowledge-intensive firms (KIFs). Although the literature on OA has started to emphasize its antecedents, the role of the board remains unaddressed. This is an important omission, as boards have become increasingly involved in strategy-making. In turn, studies on boards have looked at their influence on either exploration- or exploitation-type strategies. Yet, KIFs particularly need to balance both exploration and exploitation to renew their knowledge base. We draw on knowledge-based perspectives to disentangle the benefits and costs of board knowledge heterogeneity for driving OA in KIFs. Our empirical analysis based on a longitudinal panel of UK pharmaceutical firms provides support for our hypothesized U-shaped relation. Our findings suggest that the benefits of knowledge heterogeneity only outweigh the costs beyond a particular threshold. Overall, our theoretical approach and allied findings advance the literature by introducing boundary conditions to the resource provision role of boards in KIFs. We discuss contributions for organizational learning, strategic leadership, and human resource management. We conclude with implications for theory and practice, as well as key opportunities for future research.


The article deals with developing a mathematical model of non-rigid aircraft lifting surface with control surface controlled by pilot and supplementary control surface driven by control law. The purpose of this model is to determine if such as concept of control surface and supplementary control surface can be used for active flutter suppression on an aircraft structure. The supplementary control surface is placed next to the control surface at outboard side. The lifting surface is representing by an airfoil placed at 70% of a wing span.

A structural model is developed by means of Lagrange differential equat ons of second kind. Theodorsen model of thin oscillation airfoil with control surface is used for unsteady aerodynamic. Duhamel's integral of Wagner function is carried out for transformation of unsteady aerodynamic to a time domain. The mathematical model is present in state space repres ntation. There is exemplification of the critical flutter velocity calculation and a dynamical response of the structure. The supplementary control surface for flutter suppression with simplified model is added. losed-loop feedback control system is formed and a several control laws are presents. The verification of open-loop model is done on behalf of the of the critical flutter speed comparison with FEM software for flutter analysis MSC. Nastran and flutter analysis program developed at CTU in Prague. The article also presents work on an experimental verification of the open-loop model in aerodynamic tunnel.


In this thesis a series of experiments are described on human volunteers and rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) in the context of spatial information processing. In the first single-unit recording experiments in monkeys a spatial summation algorithm was investigated. The responses of single neurons to the presentation of two stimuli in their receptive field were compared to the activity elicited by the individual presentation of these stimuli. Parietal area 7a neurons yielded responses to multiple stimuli that resembled a winner-take-all algorithm where the most optimal stimulus determines the neuron's firing rate. The following neurophysiological study of working memory delay-period activity revealed that persistent activity commonly regarded the core of working memory processes, does not necessarily contribute to solving a delayed match-to-sample task. The alternative we propose is that a comparison of the memorized and the current stimuli can be solved by implementation of a matched filter mechanism. Both monkey studies ensured important insights into the mechanisms underlying cognitive performance and have to be taken into account in refining the existing network models of spatial attention and working memory. In human subjects two hypotheses were examined concerning the possible interactions between perception and oculomotor action and the distinction between the processes underlying spatial categorisation and distance assessment. Although, both experiments involved a behavioural methodology, in both cases the experimental design was guided by knowledge of physiological properties of visual neurons. In both cases we demonstrated that the most parsimonious explanation of the results is based on the basic neurophysiological properties of cortical neurons. It is very likely that a number of similar studies neglected these simple interpretations of the experimental outcome. The final chapter consists of a critical literature review showing that nonhuman primates have a functionally symmetric brain in the context of spatial cognition. This is in contrast to the right hemisphere specialisation in the spatial cognition in humans. One the one hand, this indicates that the left hemisphere dominance in language processing in humans evolved either concurrently or earlier than the right hemisphere expertness in spatial cognition. On the other hand, these conclusions offer an explanation why in monkeys the hemineglect syndrome is much less severe than in human patients. That is, in humans neglect occurs mainly after a right hemisphere damage, whereas in monkeys the remaining healthy hemisphere can to a great extent compensate the neglect syndrome of the other hemisphere due to their functional symmetry. Taken together the studies reported in this thesis offer new insights and up to now less explored perspectives on the issues such as spatial information integration, spatial working memory, manipulation and retrieval of spatial information and finally the lateralization of spatial cognition within the context of brain evolution.


This paper examines the issue of smart leadership for smart cities and the challenges they are facing. Particular emphasis is given to Africa (Rwanda and Ethiopia) which undergoing impressive urban growth at the rate of 3.5% annually that makes Africa the fastest urbanizing place in the world. However, the development of infrastructure and industries has not kept pace with the growth in urban population. Then how should Africa leaders be prepared and deal with the boomingurbanization process? Smart Leadership for Smart Cities: a solution to the booming urbanization process in the continent. Indeed, as indicated in African Smart Cities Strategies for Agenda 2063, smart leaders-smarter citizens-smarter cities can alleviateAfrican urban challenges. Indeed, only a little research discusses political leadership and commitment/political rationalities while the literature of technology innovation/technical rationalities is abundant. Recognizing the fact that Smart cities will not succeed without developing smart leadership, Rwanda under Paul Kagame and Ethiopia under Abiy Ahmed-have launched Smart Kigali initiative and "Beautifying Sheger" project respectively with the aims to develop the entire urban eco-system and realize smarter and sustainable neighborhoods and cities in their respective capital cities. The study employed a secondary method of data collection and analysis in combination with observation. Thus, the study concludes that political leadership is indispensable and leaders in both countries are undertaking impressive measures in transforming their country while building alliances and partnerships with various stakeholders. However, such initiatives are challenged by factors like trust and transparency, debt burden,public participation, and poor existing infrastructure. African leaders and their policymakers can learn a lot from the experiences of the two countries and their leadership style and moreover it provides a valuable contribution to the much-untouched areas of smart leadership for smart cities.


Persons with disabilities are often discriminated against and
marginalised from the mainstream development programmes in almost all
societies. Being a disadvantaged group, they suffer from social exclusion,
denied the basic rights and freedoms enjoyed by everyone else and being
deprived of the opportunities to reach their potential. They have a long
experience of being perceived as the recipients of welfare and charity rather
than rights and respects. In Malaysia, persons with disabilities have been
identified as one of the target groups in the National Welfare Policy 1990. The
policy aims to uplift the potential and to provide equal opportunities to the
disabled persons. Within the span of over thirty years after the endorsement of
this policy, the governmental and non-governmental organisations continue to
provide various programmes and services to cater for the special needs and
interests of the disabled persons. In respect of legal protection provided to the
disabled, the enforcement of the Persons with Disabilities Act 2008 seemed by
many as particularly timely. This paper discusses the paradigm shift in the
model of disability. It provides the statistics of persons with disabilities in
Malaysia, highlights the existing policies, programmes and services available to
this disadvantaged people and examines the relevant legislation that afford
protection to the persons with disabilities in Malaysia.


The understanding of autism has improved with neurosciences, especially with genetics, molecular biology and cerebral neuroimaging. This trouble looks much more heterogenous than expected, from a clinical and an etiological point of view as well. No clear pathopsychological model about the syndromes of the autistic spectrum can so far be proposed but several scientific breakthroughs seem interesting.


Objectives: To examine the interaction between ST segment depression on the baseline ECG and subsequent in-hospital revascularisation on six month mortality among patients with non-ST elevation acute coronary syndromes. To examine whether ST segment depression influenced clinical decision making and whether there was international variation in the use of cardiac procedures across ST segment depression categories. Methods: 11 453 patients enrolled in GUSTO-IIB (global use of strategies to open occluded coronary arteries), PARAGON (platelet IIb/IIIa antagonism for the reduction of acute coronary syndrome events in a global organisation network) -A, and PARAGON-B were studied. Patients were categorised as having no ST segment depression, 1 mm ST segment depression in two contiguous leads, and ST segment depression ⩾ 2 mm in two contiguous leads. International practice across four geographic regions was examined: USA, Canada, Europe, and Australia/New Zealand. Results: Revascularisation appeared to have no impact on survival among patients with no ST segment depression; however, revascularisation was associated with a significant survival benefit among patients with ST segment depression ⩾ 1 mm. There was an inverse relation between the extent of ST segment depression and the use of angiography as well as angioplasty (p < 0.01). However, patients with ST segment depression ⩾ 2 mm were more likely to undergo bypass surgery. The only significant trend of increasing use of revascularisation procedures with increasing ST segment depression was observed in the USA. Conclusions: International practice patterns in procedure use appear to be insensitive to the extent of ST segment depression. Major opportunities for more efficient delivery of care exist in all regions.


To prevent the worse health condition especially for poor society because of monetary crises since 1997, the government launched Public Health Assurance or Jamkesmas (Jaminan Kesehatan Masyarakat). This program gave health service freely to the poor society at the choosen health service places. However, the advantages of this program were still low. It was around 39.8% (Public Health Department, 2011). Beside, based on monitoring, poor society behavior didn't support this program also. They showed unhealthy behavior. The goal of this research was to develope health behavior model of Jamkesmas recipients in Kediri City East Java, also the factors which influenced them.
This research was Observation Research with crosssectional design. There were 270 respondents taken by using two stage cluster sampling technique. The data were gathered by valid and reliable questionnaire. After that, the data were analyzed descriptively by using binnary logistic regression statistic analysis to test model feasibility and regression coefficient.
The results of research showed that ost of Jamkesmas recipients had unhealthy behavior, many sick complaints and worries, ut they didn't go to the health services which were refered. This research also found that ck complaint level (need) was influenced by dwelling ownership status, family status, he th value and knowledge about disease and Jamkesmas at predisposing factors, also sp ding money for food at enabling factor, and health behavior practice.
Health behavior practice of Jamkesi s recipients and their family were influenced by education level, health value at predispo ng factor and spending money for cigarette and perception toward health service at abling factor. As well as health service utilization was influenced by worry level of t e sickness that they felt and spending money for food.


In Tamil, coronals are licensed in onsets and initial syllables, exemplifying what Jesney (2011b) calls Licensing in Multiple Contexts (LMC). Jesney shows that while only positional faithfulness produces LMC in Optimality Theory, positional licensing provides a competing analysis of LMC in Harmonic Grammar (HG). This suggests that positional faithfulness may not be necessary in HG. We argue, though, that positional faithfulness remains essential. First, other facts in Tamil are incompatible with the positional licensing approach to LMC, rendering the positional faithfulness alternative the only viable analysis. Second, only with positional faithfulness can certain typological generalizations concerning assimilation between consonants be captured.


Corporate communication and Tourism Networking is a strategy built to knit relationships between companies and their stakeholders. It is a theoretical and empirical study that is very important for an entrepreneur in the tourism sector to master and professionally operated to gain favorable support from the business environment. The ability to design, implement, manage and evaluate communications between companies and stakeholders is the key to success. Stakeholders' support for the company, both internal and external, will enable the company to achieve a predetermined business plan. Corporate communication and tourism networking is a strategic management tool that used to orchestrate information broadly to corporate stakeholders through appropriate channels of communication according to stakeholder clusters. Tourism enterprises are characterized by complexity of stakeholders which must be managed professionally to ensure that each stakeholder contributes according to their part to improve the company's performance. The corporate network will be strengthened and expanded through the planning and implementation of professional corporate communications through in-depth research and studies so that the performance results of corporate communication and tourism networking can be measured and evaluated simultaneously.


This article reconstructs Jacob van Heemskerck's second voyage to the East Indies and his capture of the Portuguese merchantman Santa Catarina on 25 February 1603. It incorporates important new archival evidence like Van Heemskerck's letter to the directors of the Dutch East India Company of 27 August 1603, and the original text of the verdict of the Amsterdam Admiralty Court, which confiscated the Santa Catarina on 4 September 1604. It has long been known that the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) wrote De Jure Praedae in defense of the ship's seizure and at the explicit request of the directors of the Dutch East India Company. Historians have failed to recognise, however, that Grotius' conceptualisation of natural rights and natural law in De Jure Praedae is based to a large extent on Van Heemskerck's own justification of privateering. A key notion of Grotius' rights theories - the individual's right to punish transgressors of the natural law in the absence of an independent and effective judge - follows logically from Van Heemskerck's reasoned decision to assault the Santa Catarina in revenge for Portuguese mistreatment of Dutch merchants in the East Indies. As shown by recent work in international relations theory - notably Edward Keene's Beyond the Anarchical Society: Grotius, Colonialism and Order in World Politics (Keene, 2002) - the natural law and natural rights theories that Grotius formulated in De Jure Praedae cannot be divorced from Dutch imperialism and colonialism in the early modern period.


The aim of the current study is to investigate the contextual conditions of devoicing of phonologically voiced stops (bilabial and velar). Articulatory and acoustic data from four male speakers were recorded by means of EMMA and EPG. Devoicing was observed more frequently for the velar stops than for the bilabials. The highest occurrence of devoicing was observed when the voiced stop was followed by a low or mid-vowel. To test whether articulatory positions are affected by the identity of the following vowel ANOVAs were computed. All subjects showed significant effects on positional data varying with place of articulation of the stop. Percentage of devoicing was significantly correlated with vertical and horizontal tongue positions for the velar and with the vertical jaw position for both stops. Stepwise regression models were computed to achieve an objective measure of the relevance of the measured parameters. We assume that in German, movement economy, i.e., co-articulation is more important than the maintenance of voicing during the closure, which is in agreement with the view that the voicing distinction in German is primarily produced by a longer VOT for the voiceless stops.


An investigation was made of the influence of age and sex on peak muscle torque in knee extension and flexion during maximal isokinetic and isometric contraction. The study was performed on both legs of 139 clinically healthy men and 141 clinically healthy women aged 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 or 70 years. Maximum knee extension and flexion muscle torque (Newtonmetre, Nm) was measured isokinetically at various angles of velocity (12, 90 and 150 degrees/s) and isometrically under standardized conditions (Cybex II). No significant differences were found between the right and the left leg in the whole material. Muscle torque was higher in men than in women in all age groups (p less than 0.001). Both isokinetic and isometric torque decreased with age in both sexes. Isokinetic torque decreased significantly (p less than 0.05) between 20 and 30 years of age in men and between 40 and 50 years of age in women (at all velocities studied; p less than 0.05). A significant decrease (p less than 0.05) was found between the ages of 60 and 70 years in both sexes. Maximum isometric torque showed a significant decrease (p less than 0.05) between 60 and 70 years in men and women. There were no significant differences in isokinetic or isometric torque between moderately active and inactive men or women. Significant correlations were found between muscle torque and body weight, height and body surface area.


The present research pursues two main interrelated objectives: one the one hand, to derive a unified definition of the concept of supply chain resilience (SCRes) from which a quantitative holistic measure of SCRes that appraises both dynamic and inherent resilience can be developed; on the other, to evaluate the theoretical effectiveness—due to the use of simulated experimental data—of a buffering strategy founded on the use of on-hand inventory buffers or short-term manufacturing capacity to build up SCRes. In this sense, the review of the literature uncovered not only flaws in the existing approaches to measure SCRes, but also opposing standpoints on the theoretical effectiveness of using a buffering strategy to inhibit the frequency/impact of SC disruptions. From the literature it is also unclear in which cases or under what circumstances the unit of analysis for this research should adopt a buffering strategy as mentioned. The unit of analysis selected for these purposes is a real-world military food supply chain (MFSC) operating in a risky environment that provides subsistence items to a medium-size military force (<280,000 troop members). The research methods to address the two research objectives proposed are, first, a robust model based on discrete simulation; and second, an open-ended questionnaire administered to the staff of the MFSC. The first method—simulation—provides the data required to test the nine ex-ante hypotheses, while the second method—questionnaire—complements the previous ones by increasing their usefulness and empirical validity. The simulation experiment performed consists of subjecting the MFSC under analysis to the stepwise occurrence of three categories of risk—operational risks or R1r; natural disasters and intentional attacks or R2r; and black-swan events or R3—while on-hand inventory buffers or short-term manufacturing capacity—the buffering strategy—are gradually increased following an efficient experimental design. To test the nine hypotheses of the research, it was necessary to apply an approach based on data mining techniques— mining causal association rules—and non-parametric methods—the Kruskal-Wallis rank sum and Binomial distribution tests, and the Wilcoxon rank sum test with continuity correction. In this way, based on a novel perspective related to the application of the concept of tail autotomy effect (TAE) to obtain a measure of SCRes (ReT), the evaluation of the output data of the simulation model indicates that: (1) ceteris paribus, increases in the frequency of occurrence of seven of the nine risk events considered reduce ReT in the MFSC with 99% confidence; (2) increases in on-hand inventory buffers positively moderate the relationship between the frequency of occurrence of risks and ReT, with 99% confidence, regardless of the category of risk—R1r, R2r, or R3—affecting the MFSC; (3) increases in short-term manufacturing capacity positively moderate the relationship between the frequency of occurrence of risks and ReT, with 95% confidence for the categories of risk R1r and R3, and with 99% confidence for R2r; and (4) from the open-ended questionnaire, the staff of the MFSC shows a marked preference for the use of on-hand inventory buffers over short-term manufacturing capacity to avoid the occurrence of disruptions. Despite the theoretical implications of these findings, the assumptions of the simulation model, the non-inclusion of the cost factor, and the utilization of a single MFSC may limit to a certain extent their generalization to other scenarios or unit of analysis. To ameliorate these deficiencies, the construction of the simulation model incorporates nine types of risk, the evaluation of ninety configurations of the MFSC—simulation runs, and the consideration of a lengthy horizon of analysis of up to twenty years, allowing other military-SCs or even commercial-SCs can take advantage of the implications of the results of this research. Thus, from a practical point of view, this research provides (military) logisticians with clear guidelines for making decisions on when and how to use on-hand inventory buffers or short-term manufacturing capacity to create resilience or to inhibit the occurrence of disruptions caused by categories of risk R1r, R2r, and R3. From a theoretical standpoint, this research makes an original contribution to the body of knowledge in SC management by providing a novel conceptual framework mainly applicable to MFSCs, which includes the analysis of three categories of risk; a holistic measure of SCRes (ReT) including dynamic and inherent resilience; and the analysis of the application of a buffering strategy based on on-hand inventory buffers and short-term manufacturing capacity. In doing so, the findings of the research provide sufficient criteria for resolving the controversy concerning the theoretical effectiveness of the aforementioned strategy to create resilience and/or to inhibit the occurrence of disruptions in SCs.


Leadership is studied very often by different researchers. Many theories are used to describe leadership effectiveness; these numerous theories can be divided into traits theories, behavioral theories and situational theories. In the last years the focus switched to more situational theories of leadership. Researchers argue that the nature of leadership varies according to the context. Although, there is done much research at this concept of leadership, there are still many questions to be answered. One of these questions: 'How do leaders tailor their leadership behavior to be effective leaders in different situations?' is addressed in this study. To answer this question 23 interviews were conducted. Leaders from ten different health care institutions in the Netherlands voluntary participated in the study. In the interviews the leaders were asked to describe critical incidents and their behavior during these incidents. The results of the study indicate that leaders change their leadership behaviors. The most used leadership styles are relation-oriented and task-oriented. Those two leadership behaviors were used by all the participants, change-oriented and passive leadership styles were used to supplement the task- and relation-oriented styles. Leaders reported preferring relation-oriented behavior, but it is not always possible to stay relation-oriented. In some cases a leader deviates from his or her preferred behavior. There are four different categories that give reasons for changing leadership behavior; (1) event-related, (2) depending on personal feelings, (3) depending on subordinates and (4) a power issue. In the event-related category (1) switches are made between relation-oriented and task-oriented behaviors, one of the things that should be noticed is the use of change-oriented behavior when another way of working is introduced. In that case the leader has to give an appealing description of desirable outcomes that can be achieved; therefore he or she has to motivate people to do their work in another way. In the second category; depending on personal feelings (2) the use of passive behavior is standing out. Leaders switch to this kind of behavior when they feel injustice. When it is about subordinates (3) the leaders reported using task-oriented behaviors when dealing with low educated people and relation-oriented behavior when dealing with high educated people. The last category; a power issue (4) is about setting rules and making decisions. In that case leaders reported deviating from their preferred behavior to task-oriented behaviors.


For researchers of art history or archaeology of the early modern period, evidence must be viewed through a multidisciplinary eye in order to understand all aspects of culture. Objects which become popular as a costume component can serve as markers for change in culture. This paper will demonstrate the value of one such marker, the bootspur of the 17th century. Examples are taken from an archaeological site in Ferryland, Newfoundland, and from the British Museum. Note that when using this type of research material, there is an additional limitation, that of burial environment. We may never get the whole story because, depending on the material of manufacture, some objects will survive burial and others will not.


The synthesis of SrBi2Ta2O9 (SBT) thin films has been investigated using a superlattice approach. Thin films were deposited on silicon by independent injection of each source to produce Bi2O3/SrTa2O6 superlattices. The effects of post-deposition annealing have been investigated using high-resolution TEM and medium energy ion scattering (MEIS) to depth profile the superlattices. X-ray diffraction has also been used to characterize the conversion of the superlattices from distinct layers of Bi2O3 and SrTa2O6 into a polycrystalline layer of strontium bismuth tantalate.


Living in a low-lying and densely populated country on the front line of climate change, Bangladeshis are taking a lead in adapting to rising temperatures and campaigning to limit climate change. Global warming will worsen this country's existing environmental problems – causing a rise in sea level, more flooding and stronger, more damaging cyclones.

Bangladeshis know what is coming, and how to respond, because they are already effectively combating environmental and social challenges. Cyclone shelters and warning systems have cut the fatality rate dramatically; new varieties of rice have raised nutrition levels; women's education has slowed population growth; land is being raised to respond to sea level rise. Bangladeshis will keep their heads above water, but at huge costs. Will the industrialised countries curb their greenhouse gas emissions and pay for the damage they have already done?


Sukla Phanta Wildlife Reserve lies in the southwest corner of Nepal. It has been listed as an important bird area and a number of bird studies have been conducted here. The reserve is an important refuge especially for many grassland birds, several of which are globally threatened. The high, total of 15 globally threatened and 13 near-threatened bird species occur in Sukla Phanta. Some of the bird species reach their world limit of distribution at Sukla Phanta. Of all the habitats found in Sukla Phanta, grassland is the most important. Conservation and management of grasslands that are sympathetic to bird populations are urgent at Sukla Phanta. Key words: Sarcogyps calvus, globally threatened birds, Sukla Phanta Wildlife Reserve, Nepal DOI: 10.3126/on.v7i1.2554 Our Nature (2009) 7:56-81