The largest Brazilian coal mine, called Candiota mine, is located in South Brazil, with an estimated reserve about 1.2 billion tons. Since late 2003, an experiment located at a reclaimed site in a coal mining area was conducted, in which a research group from the Federal University of Pelotas has been conducting a long-term experiment on soil quality with different plants species, such as Hemarthria altissima, Paspalum notatum cv. Pensacola, Cynodon dactylon cv. Tifton, and Urochloa brizantha. After 8.6 years of revegetation, soil samples at 0.20 depth were collected in minesoil and natural soil to determine physical attributes, and the organic carbon content. After 10.9 years of revegetation, soil samples at 0.10 m depth were collected to determine the biological attributes. According to the research results, it can be seen that the recovery of minesoil was more effective after 8.6 years of revegetation only in the physical condition up to 0.10 m depth. However, all soil physical attributes and organic matter content are still below the levels observed in the natural soil. The biological attributes after 10.9 years of revegetation have not yet been sufficient to restore a mites and springtails population close to the natural soil.


On the basis of literature data, montmorillonite (MMT) as a filler of polymeric composites was characterized, namely the structure and the possibility of its modification. The authors' investigations concerned the process of preparation of nanocomposites based on isotactic polypropylene (PP) with MMT, with use of three variants of twin-screw extrusion. The third component of nanocomposites was polypropylene grafted with maleic anhydride, acting as compatibilizer of MMT/PP system (Table 1). The effects of extrusion variant and the ratios of composite components on the useful properties of the products obtained (melt flow rate, static and dynamic mechanical properties, thermal stability, barrier properties - see Table 2-4, Fig. 3-7) were determined. It was demonstrated that the method of nanocomposite preparation (by use of shearing - mixing configuration of the screws) let obtain MMT fully exfoliated and uniformly dispersed in a nanocomposite. It improves significantly the studied properties of nanocomposites.


Software transactional memory (STM) is an optimistic concurrent lock free mechanism that has the potential of positively transforming how concurrent programming is performed. STM, despite its many desirable attributes, is not yet a ubiquitous programming language feature in the commercial software domain. There are many implementation challenges with retrofitting STM into pre-existing language frameworks. Furthermore, existing software systems will also need to be refactored in order to take advantage of STM's unique benefits. As with other time consuming and error prone refactoring processes, refactoring for STM is best done with automated tool support; it is the aim of this paper to propose such a tool.


We consider an environment of numerous moving objects, equipped with location-sensing devices and capable of communicating with a central coordinator. In this setting, we investigate the problem of maintaining hot motion paths, i.e., routes frequently followed by multiple objects over the recent past. Motion paths approximate portions of objects' movement within a tolerance margin that depends on the uncertainty inherent in positional measurements. Discovery of hot motion paths is important to applications requiring classification/profiling based on monitored movement patterns, such as targeted advertising, resource allocation, etc. To achieve this goal, we delegate part of the path extraction process to objects, by assigning to them adaptive lightweight filters that dynamically suppress unnecessary location updates and, thus, help reducing the communication overhead. We demonstrate the benefits of our methods and their efficiency through extensive experiments on synthetic data sets.


The treatment of first and second generation patients, having been traumatized by social catastrophes (like German concentration camps), puts a heavy burden on the therapist. To overcome this, the therapist must clearly realize what goes on in himself (countertransference) to avoid unsuitable interpretations and acting out. This counts even more if the therapist himself has undergone social trauma. Two case studies are included, which illustrate how the author could further the analytic process. Especially with masochistic-regressive patients the analyst has to accept and use his temporary identification.


This article investigates the narratives employed by the Romanian media in covering the development of COVID-19 in Roma communities in Romania. This paper aims to contribute to academic literature on Romani studies, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, by adopting as its case study the town of Ţăndărei, a small town in the south of Romania, which in early 2020 was widely reported by Romanian media during both the pre- and post-quarantine period. The contributions rest on anchoring the study in post-foundational theory and media studies to understand the performativity of Roma identity and the discursive-performative practices of control employed by the Romania media in the first half of 2020. Aroused by the influx of ethnic Romani returning from Western Europe, the Romanian mainstream media expanded its coverage through sensationalist narratives and depictions of lawlessness and criminality. These branded the ethnic minority as a scapegoat for the spreading of the virus. Relying on critical social theory, this study attempts to understand how Roma have been portrayed during the Coronavirus crisis. Simultaneously, this paper resonates with current Roma theories about media discourses maintaining and reinforcing a sense of marginality for Roma communities. To understand the dynamics of Romanian media discourses, this study employs NVivo software tools and language-in-use discourse analysis to examine the headlines and sub headlines of approximately 300 articles that have covered COVID-19 developments in Roma communities between February and July 2020. The findings from the study indicate that the media first focused on exploiting the sensationalism of the episodes involving Roma. Second, the media employed a logic of polarization to assist the authorities in retaking control of the pandemic and health crisis from Romania. The impact of the current study underlines the need to pay close attention to the dynamics of crises when activating historical patterns of stigma vis-à-vis Roma communities in Eastern Europe.


This study examined the continued gender imbalance in mathematics participation in senior high, which has implications for adolescents' future careers. It confirms persisting greater male participation in maths-related educational and occupational choices among this sample of Australian youth. Gendered course-taking in maths, along with participation intentions for maths-related careers, were explained using the Expectancy–Value framework of Eccles and colleagues (Eccles (Parsons) et al., 1983; Wigfield & Eccles, 2000). The influences of maths-related self-perceptions, intrinsic and utility values, and perceived task difficulty were assessed using longitudinal data from a sample of 442 adolescents spanning Grades 9 through 11 in Sydney, Australia. Gendered maths-related self-perceptions and intrinsic values were the major influences on gendered educational participation in senior high maths, which subsequently predicted maths-related career aspirations—over and above prior mathematical achievement. Utility value showed a curvilinear relationship with maths-related occupational intentions moderated by gender, whereby girls with the highest utility values planned for highly maths-related careers, while boys with mid through high utility values planned similarly highly maths-related careers. Recommendations focus on ways to enhance participation in maths, especially for girls.


Compulsory insurance is present in a vast majority of countries in the world and in all European countries. As international legal relations increasingly intensify, the market of cross-border insurance is also expanding. Despite entry into force of the provisions of the Rome I Regulation and the oncoming reform of the Brussels I bis Regulation, the European private international law, to the extent it governs compulsory insurance, is still a compromise. In the absence of a clear regime under the Rome I Regulation, doubts are still raised by the question of the pursuit for law applicable to group insurance contracts.


Since 1918 flu pandemic, novel human corona virus diseases has been documented as the fifth pandemic resulting in catastrophic events not only in terms of deaths and increased number of cases but also hampered the workplaces. Dental practitioners, due to the concise area of work are in direct contact and consequently at a higher risk for transmitting or acquiring this diseases. In this COVID era, vaccine hesitancy remains a greater barrier to the population inoculation against this highly dreadful and infectious disease. With the rapid development of the vaccine globally, major concerns about it acceptance and safety still remains a question. Thus the main
Aim of our article was to assess the acceptance and hesitancy rates regarding COVID-19 vaccination among dental student, exploring their experience and creating an awareness program for counseling of hesitant subjects.
Material and Methodology: randomized 100 under and post graduate dental students of Himachal Pradesh were selected and divided into two groups G1 with 50 vaccinated and G2 with 50 non vaccinated students. A well structured, online multiple choice questionnaire was formulated and distributed among them for recording the response. The data obtained was collected, tabulated and analyzed using Chi square test for the experience of subjects regarding vaccine.
Results: when compared around 76% of the vaccinated respondents agreed about the fact of making vaccination mandatory for all while 90% of the non-vaccinated respondents were still confused about the same.
Conclusion:  the results of our study highlighted for the need and awareness about the safety and effectiveness to promote the uptake of COVID-19 vaccine. Though made obligatory, there are still a huge number of people who still raise a question regarding the efficacy of the vaccine.
Keywords: Acceptance, Covid-19, Dentist, Hesitancy, Vaccine, Virus.


A very efficient hybrid PO-MoM method has been presented. In contrast to existing methods, the present solution employs higher-order hierarchical basis functions to discretize the MoM and PO currents. This allows to reduce the number of basis functions in both the PO and MoM regions considerably which implies a very modest memory requirement. Nevertheless, the hierarchical feature of the basis functions maintains the ability to treat small geometrical details efficiently. In addition, the scatterer is modelled with higher-order curved patches which allows accurate modelling of curved surfaces with a low number of patches. A numerical result for an offset shaped reflector antenna illustrated the accuracy of the method.


In Brazil, gasoline station attendants are regularly exposed to the ethanol contained in fuel, as well as the one used as the gasoline additive. This study aimed to assess the potential exposure of these workers to fuels, using breathalyzers and oral fluid (OF) analysis by headspace gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (HS-GC/MS). Attendants of 26 gasoline stations were invited to respond to a questionnaire covering the main features of the study population and the profile of drinking and driving behavior, followed by a breath test and OF collection with a Quantisal™ device. All OF samples were analyzed by HS-GC/MS. Ethanol was found in 100% of the OF samples whereas 72.83% had concentrations above the quantification limit of the method (0.00125 g dL−1). Regarding the breath tests, only one exhaled air sample (0.62%) showed a positive result (0.03 mg L−1). The positive results in OF samples and negative results in exhaled air may be explained by the higher sensitivity of OF analysis by HS-GC/MS, when compared to the breathalyzer.


Aggressive behaviour between fish is common in both freshwater and seawater environments, at all stages of development and both between species and within species groups. In monoculture fish farms intracohort aggressive behaviours result in the establishment of dominance and feeding hierarchies, growth depensation (the increase in size variability within a population over time due to differences in growth rates), stress, injury, increased pathogen susceptibility and death. Given the material impact of aggressive behaviours on stock value, Australian fish farmers of both Atlantic salmon and barramundi, carry out specific husbandry practices and provide culture environments that aim to reduce these interactions.
Tryptophan (TRP), an essential amino acid, is the precursor of serotonin (5-HT), a monoamine neurotransmitter implicated in mood modulation and behavioural change. This study examined whether supplementary dietary tryptophan (TRP) reduces the rate of aggressive interactions between barramundi. It also examined whether supplementary dietary tryptophan causes a quicker resumption of feeding in Atlantic salmon smolt post-seawater transfer (SWT). These research questions were considered of sufficient commercial interest to warrant sponsorship of this study by an Australian aqua feed manufacturer.
This study involved 5 experiments: (1) the effect of supplementary dietary TRP on the behavioural response of a resident barramundi to a smaller intruder; (2) the behavioural response of isolated barramundi to their reflection, a foreign object , and a smaller intruder, with measurement of physiological stress responses and brain serotonergic activity; (3) the effect of supplementary dietary TRP on growth performance, cannibalism, physiological stress response and brain serotonergic activity in groups of barramundi fed to satiation; (4) the effect of supplementary dietary TRP on growth performance, cannibalism, physiological stress response and brain serotonergic activity in groups of barramundi fed a restricted ration; (5) the effect of supplementary dietary TRP on resumption of feeding post-SWT, growth performance, physiological stress response and brain serotonergic activity in groups of Atlantic salmon smolt fed to satiation.
In experiment 1, aggressive behaviour of a resident barramundi, fed either a reference feed or one supplemented with TRP at 19.4 mg.g\(^{-1}\) total inclusion, toward a 50% smaller (length) conspecific intruder was examined. Intruder fish were confined with residents for 24 hours after the residents had been fed the experimental feeds for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 14 days. Video data were analysed for 5 minutes of each hour over the 24 hour period and behaviours were presented for the first 5 minutes of confinement, the first 6 hours of confinement, and the full 24 hours of confinement. Data for the full 24 hours of confinement are presented for only days 1 and 14. No differences in behavior were found between these treatments during the first 5 minutes of confinement for any day.
In relation to the 6 hours of confinement no differences in behavior were observed on all but 2 days tested. On day 14 more attacks were perpetrated on the intruder by fish fed the reference feed. On day 6 a greater latency to chasing by resident fish was observed in the treatment fed the reference diet compared to those fed the TRP supplemented feed and a greater latency to eyeballing by resident fish was observed for fish fed TRP supplemented feed compared to those fed the reference feed.
Across 24 hours of confinement on day 14 more attacks were perpetrated on the intruder by fish fed the reference feed. A greater latency to eyeballing by resident fish was observed on day 1 over 24 hours of confinement for fish fed TRP supplemented feed compared to those fed the reference feed.
No differences in survival of intruders were observed at either initial confinement, or after 6 or 24 hours of confinement between feed treatments.
Experiment 2 aimed to identify behavioural types in barramundi by comparing individual responses to 3 different stimuli with serotonergic and physiological stress responses. Stepwise regression was used to identify predictor variables of behavioural response. Solitary resident barramundi were acclimated to test chambers and exposed to each of the 3 stimuli (reflection, foreign object and intruder) for 1 hour, with a 72 hour gap between tests to reduce the possible behavioural effect of one test upon the next. After the final test (the intruder test) resident fish were sampled for blood and brain tissue.
Eyeballing by residents was found to be the strongest predictor of attack by residents on intruders. Eyeballing the foreign object was the strongest predictor for chasing the intruder. Blood glucose was elevated in resident fish chased by intruders, however was not significantly elevated in residents that chased the intruder. Due to a processing error data for serotonergic activity were not available.
In experiments 3 and 4 growth performance, rates of cannibalism, stress physiology and serotonergic activity were examined. Across the two experiments fish were offered feed supplemented with TRP at 4.6, 19, 21.4, 23.8, 28.0, 31.0, 33.6, 40.9 mg.g\(^{-1}\) (Exp 3); and 4.6, 14.8, 15.9 and 19.0 mg.g\(^{-1}\) (Exp 4). Fish were fed to satiation in Exp 3, and to either satiation or 50% of satiation in Exp 4.
Supplementary dietary TRP was found to inhibit food intake in barramundi in a dose dependent manner, and specific growth rate was negatively correlated with increased dose. When barramundi were offered a range of TRP supplemented feeds to satiation, fish fed the reference feed, and the feed with the least supplementary TRP had more efficient feed conversion ratios. No differences in feed conversion ratio were observed between barramundi offered either a satiation or 50% of satiation ration at any of the TRP inclusions, despite specific growth rate being strongly affected by ration. Neither ration size nor TRP content affected survival or physiological stress response measured as whole body cortisol, and whole blood glucose and lactate.
Supplementary dietary TRP (4.9, 10.9, 21.8, and 46.3 mg.g\(^{-1}\) of feed) was found to inhibit food intake in Atlantic salmon smolt in a dose dependent manner prior to seawater transfer in Exp 5. Seawater transfer of Atlantic salmon smolt reduced food intake for both high (period of low water level followed by immersion in seawater ) and low (slow flooding of tanks with seawater ) stress transfer types and for all feed types (4.9, 10.9, 21.8, and 46.3 mg.g\(^{-1}\) of feed). Supplementation with TRP did not increase the level of food intake or reduce the period of reduced food intake post-seawater transfer. Neither supplementation of feed with TRP, nor seawater transfer type affected growth or the feed conversion ratio. Serum cortisol was increased by seawater transfer however no differences in serum cortisol response were observed between seawater transfer type. Serum osmolality values were higher for Atlantic salmon subjected to high stress seawater transfer compared to low stress seawater transfer. Brain TRP concentration was higher post-seawater transfer in fish fed the reference feed and subjected to high stress transfer compared to those subjected to low stress transfer.
Experiments show that supplementary dietary TRP, at the inclusion levels used in the current study, in general do not significantly inhibit behavioural interactions (measured either directly by video or by the proxy of relative growth performance) between barramundi or Atlantic salmon. The non-feeding period observed in Atlantic salmon smolt post-seawater transfer was not alleviated by supplementing food with TRP. Furthermore the strong hypophagic effect of TRP further reduces its potential as a functional ingredient for practical application in fin fish food.
This thesis discusses possible pathways for the observed hypophagic action of dietary TRP, as well as the apparent lack of behavioural modulation. The attribution of TRP, serotonin (5-HT), 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-OHIAA) or the ratio 5-HT : 5-OHIAA, to food intake and behavioural observations are discussed in context with sometimes contrary findings of other studies. Associations between serotonergic activity and HPI axis activation are examined.
All aspects of the study conformed to the requirements of the NHMRC Australian code of practice for the care and use of animals for scientific purposes 8th edition 2013, and more specifically to the UTAS Animal Ethics Committee approved project AOO14598.


On his many travels Ruskin visited religious monuments, including cathedrals. The list would be long, either by mentioning his visits in his Diaries or by describing and analyzing monuments in his works on architecture. His interest became passionate about Gothic cathedrals, and sometimes very critical for other periods. My presentation will focus on a hermeneutics of styles and mainly the Gothic style in Ruskin's work. Through this process, I will seek to understand his positions on the question of restoration, and I will once again open the file on the discussions he is initiating on Viollet-le-Duc's work: "Let us not talk about restoration, it is a lie from one end to the other", he wrote in The Seven Lamps of Architecture.


Domestic robotic entities are on the rise, out of which, domestic drones are taking place in our society as one of the upcoming interactive technologies that we will see in our daily lives. In this paper, we scope for research literature that addresses the use of domestic drones within our environments to understand the current usage as well as identifying future research directions. After performing a search based collection of relevant papers in the ACM digital library (N=61 papers), we analysed the drone's application areas, their interaction modalities, the target users, and the level of autonomy of the proposed systems. The results show interesting trends in the modalities of interaction (visual projection combined with hand/foot gestures) as well as important research gaps such as child-drone interaction, and the use of drones for healthcare or education, given that currently most use cases for domestic drones are generic in nature.


LNCaP prostate cancer cells are highly resistant to induction of programmed cell death by y-irradiation and somewhat sensitive to the death-inducing effects of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha. Simultaneous exposure of LNCaP cells to TNF-alpha and 8 Gy of irradiation was synergistic and resulted in a 3-fold increase of apoptotic cells within 72 h compared to TNF-alpha alone. It appeared that TNF-alpha sensitized the cells to irradiation because, when cells were irradiated 24 h after exposure to TNF-alpha, increased cell death was observed. In contrast, irradiation delivered 24 h prior to TNF-alpha exposure did not result in more cell death than after TNF-alpha alone. TNF-alpha induced expression of its own mRNA, but TNF-alpha mRNA induction was neither induced nor enhanced by irradiation. Activation of the transcription factor nuclear factor kappaB can be induced by TNF-alpha and has a modulating antiapoptotic effect. But enhancement of TNF-alpha-induced cell death by irradiation did not result from altered activation of nuclear factor kappaB. TNF-alpha treatment of LNCaP cells resulted in partial activation of caspase-8 and -6 but not caspase-3. There was only minimal poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase cleavage seen in LNCaP cells after exposure to both TNF-alpha and irradiation at 72 h, a time when 60% of the cells were apoptotic. Experiments with peptide inhibitors of cysteine and serine proteases suggested that caspases were the predominant mediators of apoptosis induced by TNF-alpha alone but that serine proteases contributed significantly to cell death induced by TNF-alpha plus irradiation. TNF-alpha increased production of ceramide in LNCaP cells 48 h after exposure. Although irradiation alone had no effect on ceramide production in LNCaP cells, TNF-alpha plus irradiation induced significantly more ceramide than TNF-alpha alone. Ceramide production did not occur immediately after exposure to TNF-alpha, but rather was delayed such that ceramide levels were increased only 24 h after exposure to apoptotic stimuli. Moreover, non-toxic levels of exogenous C2-ceramide sensitized LNCaP cells to irradiation similarly to TNF-alpha, suggesting that one mechanism by which LNCaP cells were sensitized to irradiation was by increased intracellular ceramide. Hence, ceramide generation is a critical component in radiation-induced apoptosis in human prostate cancer cells. Inhibition of ceramide generation may provide a selective advantage in the development of radioresistance in prostate cancer.


Cerebral scanning was performed in 52 cases of brain infarctions (in 43 cases in the system of middle brain arteries and in 9 cases in the vertebro-basillar basin). For this purpose in 46 of the studied cases human albumin serum, labeled readioactive I131 was used and in 6 cases-Tc 99m. Positive scannograms were received only in 16 patients with infarctions in the system of the middle brain arteries. The clinical picture in both groups of patients with positive and negative scannograms did not differ significantly from each other. This may indicate the fact that the process of accumulating radioactive isotopes in brain infarctions depends upon manifold reasons: the state of collateral circulations, the traits of angioarchitectonics in the affected area, the level of metabolism in the focus of lesions, disturbed permeability of the menatoencephalic barrier, etc. In doubtful cases for the differential diagnosis between brain infactions and tumors the most valid criteria in scanning is the dynamics of the focus of accuumulation of radioactive isotopes.


Twenty-one patients with Sjögren's syndrome were given four different kinds of acupuncture stimulation, at acupuncture points previously used to treat xerostomia. The local blood flux in the skin overlying the parotid gland was measured with laser Doppler flowmetry before, during and after the acupuncture stimulation. The results showed that the local blood flux increased significantly during and after both manual acupuncture and low-frequency (2 Hz) electro-acupuncture as compared with superficial acupuncture. These results indicate that acupuncture induced an increase in the local blood flux which was more pronounced for those patients who had previously reacted with increased salivary flow to acupuncture.


Automated tiered storage with fast memory and slow flash storage (ATSMF) is a hybrid storage system located between non-volatile memories (NVMs) and solid state drives (SSDs). ATSMF reduces the average response time for input-output (IO) accesses by migrating concentrated IO-access areas from an SSD to an NVM. However, the current ATSMF implementation cannot sufficiently reduce the average response time because of the bottleneck caused by the Linux brd driver, which is used for the NVM access driver. The response time of the brd driver is more than ten times longer than memory-access speed. To sufficiently reduce the average response time, we developed a block-level driver for an NVM called a "two-mode (2M) memory driver." This driver has a .map-access mode and direct-access mode to reduce the response time while maintaining compatibility with the Linux device-mapper framework. The direct-access mode has a drastically lower response time than the Linux brd driver because the ATSMF driver can directly execute the IO-access function of the 2M memory driver. Experimental results indicate that ATSMF using the 2M memory driver reduced the IO access response time to less than that of ATSMF using the Linux brd driver in most cases.


In this paper, we present a hierarchical mapping method that allows us to obtain accurate metric maps of large environments in real time. The lower (or local) map level is composed of a set of local maps that are guaranteed to be statistically independent. The upper (or global) level is an adjacency graph whose arcs are labeled with the relative location between local maps. An estimation of these relative locations is maintained at this level in a relative stochastic map. We propose a close to optimal loop closing method that, while maintaining independence at the local level, imposes consistency at the global level at a computational cost that is linear with the size of the loop. Experimental results demonstrate the efficiency and precision of the proposed method by mapping the Ada Byron building at our campus. We also analyze, using simulations, the precision and convergence of our method for larger loops.


Pakistan is facing energy crises from past decade due to experiencing increase in energy demands. This current work is a comparative study to meet the energy demand from production of biogas from waste solid materials. The main emphasis is to treat biomass, manure, municipal waste, sewage and green waste to produce biogas using different technologies. At the ends there are some suggestions for effective planning of sustainable energy exploitation and facilitate for technology solution of further research. These suggestions are very useful for meeting the energy demand in Pakistan as well as for third world counties.


Digital autonomous systems are characterized by their ability to make their "own" decisions, i.e. decisions that are not fully determined by the software that animates them. As such, they pose a challenge to existing liability systems and to the general law of delict or torts. At the European level, the European Parliament took the initiative and drafted a Regulation on Liability for the Operation of Artificial-Intelligence-Systems it recommended for adoption by the Commission. The European Parliament distinguishes between high-risk-AI-systems, that shall be governed by a regime of strict liability, and "other" AI-systems, that create only normal risks and are left to fault-based liability, as defined in the legal systems of the Member States. With a view to the addresses of the new liability scheme, the draft regulation distinguishes between frontend- and backend-operators. The following chapter discusses the fundamental choices which the framers of the draft made. It concludes that the focus of the proposal on user liability is misguided, as the manufacturers are the central actors who determine the safety features of AI-systems. Moreover, introducing the concept of a backend-operator creates needless friction with the Products Liability Directive. While the commitment to strict liability for high-risk-AI-systems draws a wedge into existing regimes of strict liability under national law, the imposition of fault-based liability on users of ordinary AI-systems forces some Member States to roll back more generous rules of tort law.


Terrestrial laser scanners (TLSs) provide a tool to assess and monitor forest structure across forest landscapes. We present TLS methods, suggestions, and mapped guidelines for planning TLS acquisitions at varying scales and forest densities. We examined rates of point‐density decline with distance from two TLS that acquire data at relatively high and low point density and found that the rates were nearly identical between scanners (p value <0.01), suggesting that our findings are applicable to a range of TLS types. Using unique, TLS‐adapted processing methods, we determined the relative accuracy of TLS‐derived plot‐scale estimates of tree height, diameter‐at‐breast‐height, height‐to‐canopy, tree counts, as well as treatment‐scale tree density and patch metrics, using both high point density and low point density TLS among thinned and nonthinned forest treatments. The high‐density TLS consistently provides more accurate estimates of plot‐level metrics (R2 = 0.46 to 0.87) than the low‐density TLS (R2 = −0.14 to 0.53). At treatment scales, tree density estimates are similar among scanners (R2 = 0.95 vs. 0.71), as are canopy cover and patch metrics. We develop and present the normalized density‐distance index (NDDI), which can account for up to 59% of the variance in estimate error and can be used to guide TLS‐data acquisition plans. This index indicates whether a given location has generally higher point density (higher NDDI) relative to the distance from the scanner and can be used as a proxy for uncertainty. Using NDDI as a guide for fair comparison between scanners, both plot‐ and treatment‐scale estimates improved.


Tradeshows and conventions continue to thrive in the twenty-first century, both for information exchanges and direct selling, but numerous forces have meant changes in show operation and in participants' selection criteria for attendance. A study of more than 2,500 tradeshow exhibitors and attendees document a clear bifurcation in the reasons for attendance in these two groups. Exhibitors are primarily focused on business and contact development, whereas participants seek a unique experience and are motivated heavily by educational goals. Successful tradeshows will need to satisfy both of these complementary sets of goals. The effects of social media and mobile technology on tradeshows are noticeable but still in flux, as many shows increasingly use virtual methods for information exchange and contact development. Environmental sustainability has become important to both exhibitors and attendees, and budgetary constraints continue to be an issue. Not only are there differences in relative preferences of exhibitors and attendees, but subgroups within each category also show different tradeshow criteria, based on age, frequency of tradeshow visits, career stage, and their technology readiness.


The presence of stromal cells was investigated in aspirated bone marrow prepared by the same method as that used for the initiation of human long-term bone marrow culture (hLTBMC). In previous studies, we performed immunocytochemical staining of cytocentrifuge cell preparations using a panel of antibodies with which we characterized stromal cell populations in hLTBMC. This approach allowed morphological as well as immunophenotypic assessment of cells of interest. Morphologically distinctive cell populations expressing vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 and low-affinity nerve growth factor receptor (NGFR) were observed to be present, but no cells expressing alpha-smooth muscle actin were found. Few macrophages were present, consistent with the origin of hLTBMC stroma-adherent macrophages from monocytes and their precursor cells rather than from mature macrophages among the culture-initiating cells. In the absence of double immunostaining, it was not possible to deduce whether CD34+ cells, which were present in varying numbers in the cytocentrifuge preparations, included stromal as well as primitive hematopoietic cells. In addition to single cells, multicellular tissue fragments containing a variety of stromal cell types were detected in many samples. Their presence raises the possibility that at least some components of hLTBMC stroma may arise by explant growth from complex tissue fragments containing vascular and fibroblastic elements. Overall, our results indicate that demonstration of a variety of stroma-associated antigens, in particular NGFR, provides a useful new tool for identifying stromal elements in aspirated bone marrow.


Introduction: In vitro bioassays were performed to access the larvicidal activity of crude extracts from the endophytic fungus Pestalotiopsis virgulata (Melanconiales, Amphisphaeriaceae) and the saprophytic fungus Pycnoporus sanguineus (Basidiomycetes, Polyporaceae) against the mosquitoes Aedes aegypti and Anopheles nuneztovari. Methods: The extracts were tested at concentrations of 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500ppm. Ethyl acetate mycelia (EAM) extracts and liquid culture media (LCM) from Pe. virgulata and Py. sanguineus were tested against third instar larvae of Ae. aegypti and An. nuneztovari. Results: The larvicidal activity of the EAM extracts from Pe. virgulata against Ae. aegypti had an LC 50 =101.8ppm, and the extract from the basidiomycete fungus Py. sanguineus had an LC 50 =156.8ppm against the Ae. aegypti larvae. The Pe. virgulata extract had an LC 50 =16.3ppm against the An. nuneztovari larvae, and the Py. sanguineus extract had an LC 50 =87.2ppm against these larvae. Conclusions: These results highlight the larvicidal effect of EAM extracts from the endophyte Pe. virgulata against the two larval mosquitoes tested. Thus, Pe. virgulata and Py. sanguineus have the potential for the production of bioactive substances against larvae of these two tropical disease vectors, with An. nuneztovari being more susceptible to these extracts.


: The objective of the present study was to evaluate the effect of active compounds from Dregea volubilis [Benth] leaves on serum glucose in normal and diabetic rats. Diabetes was induced by Streptozotocin (STZ) and High Fat Diet (HFD) in wistar rats. An isolated fraction of ethanolic extracts of Dregea volubilis [Benth] (ETDV) was administered orally at a dose of 100 mg/kg, p.o. Metformin was used as standard anti diabetic drug (50 mg/kg, p.o). An isolated fractions showing for higher anti diabetic activity was subjected to column chromatography that led to isolation of a pure compound, which was given trivial name DV-1. The interesting results of our preliminary studies with the ETDV have motivated to isolate anti-diabetic active compounds from the leaves of DV for the management of hypoglycaemic activities. Collected fractions were subjected to anti-diabetic activity in STZ and HFD induced wistar rats. The fraction F from ETDV showed strong anti-diabetic activity on a par with the standard drug metformin. To ensure the compounds responsible for anti-diabetic activities associated with F respectively. In addition a column chromatographic analysis was carried out with F using various solvent systems and isolated compound named as DV-1 from the column which was amorphous powders with decomposition point. DV-1 is phenolic compound nature confirmed by spectral analysis. Reduction in the FBG by Dv-1 indicates that Dv-1 has anti diabetic efficacy and provides a scientific rationale for the use as an anti diabetic agent.


In the previous edition Part II consisted of some 26 notes (appendices on such topics as" The Occult in Geometry " , " Pythagorean Numbers " , " On trisecting an angle " , " On the Nature of Time " etc.). In the new edition we have instead four chapters of a more technical character dealing with the recording of numbers, topics in integers, roots and radicals, principles and arguments. The author regards these " as an integrated story of the development of method and argument in the field of numbers " . This is a book that should be in every school mathematics library (even if a copy of a previous edition is already there). W. G. K ell a w a y Department of Education9 Cambridge.


The work draws heavily on data from the Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture annd from the Integrated Rural Survey and Urban Food Purchasing data base of the Central Bureau of Statistics. It provides a detailed examination of the general economic situation and income distribution in rural and urban Kenya and the patterns of food demand deriving from them. It then looks at the current agricultural production structure and estimates production possibilities up to the year 2000. Finally production and consumption projections are compared and policy implications are examined. The population of Kenya is expected to double by the year 2000 to around 3 mill, but to remain predominantly rural (73%). Income distribution is more unequal in the towns than in rural areas though heavily skewed in both. The percentage of the population below a minimum nutritional level is expected to fall from 16% to 10%, though this will represent an increase in absolute numbers. At present smallholder farms are mainly growing maize as a subsistence crop, intercropping with pulses and beans and using virtually no modern inputs. Large farms grow coffee, tea and sisal for export and some maize for the urban market. Higher acreages, greater yields and improved technologies are expected to increase domestic production to keep up with demand from a higher population and beter incomes by 2000. Such changes are technically feasible, but the institutional factors may have a limiting effect


Amanita muscaria sensu lato has a wide geographic distribution, occurring in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and North, Central and South America. Previous phylogenetic work by others indicates three geographic clades (i.e. 'Eurasian', 'Eurasian‐alpine' and 'North American' groups) within A. muscaria. However, the historical dispersal patterns of A. muscaria remained unclear. In our project, we collected specimens from arctic, boreal and humid temperate regions in Alaska, and generated DNA sequence data from the protein‐coding beta‐tubulin gene and the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and large subunit (LSU) regions of the ribosomal DNA repeat. Homologous sequences from additional A. muscaria isolates were downloaded from GenBank. We conducted phylogenetic and nested clade analyses (NCA) to reveal the phylogeographic history of the species complex. Although phylogenetic analyses confirmed the existence of the three above‐mentioned clades, representatives of all three groups were found to occur sympatrically in Alaska, suggesting that they represent cryptic phylogenetic species with partially overlapping geographic distributions rather than being allopatric populations. All phylogenetic species share at least two morphological varieties with other species, suggesting ancestral polymorphism in pileus and wart colour pre‐dating their speciations. The ancestral population of A. muscaria likely evolved in the Siberian–Beringian region and underwent fragmentation as inferred from NCA and the coalescent analyses. The data suggest that these populations later evolved into species, expanded their range in North America and Eurasia. In addition to range expansions, populations of all three species remained in Beringia and adapted to the cooling climate.


Many hospitality consumption experiences are shared with fellow consumers such as acquaintances, friends, or family members. Yet research examining the impact of fellow consumers' presence on consumers' donation behaviors is scant. To bridge that gap, the current research examines how the presence of fellow consumers influences consumers' donation behaviors in a restaurant setting. Results from our experiment reveal that the impact of fellow consumers' presence depends on two factors: observability of the donation and donation appeal type. Specifically, we found that when the act of donating is unobservable by others and the donation appeal highlights self-benefits, the presence of fellow consumers drives individuals to exhibit more favorable attitude and higher levels of donation intention. Conversely, when the act of donation is observable by others and the donation appeal portrays other benefits, the presence of fellow consumers makes individuals to exhibit less favorable attitude and lower levels of donation intention. Furthermore, our mediation analyses show that anticipated emotional benefits is the underlying psychological mechanism explaining the effects. We discuss the theoretical contributions and managerial implications of our findings as well as limitations and opportunities for future research.


This wide-ranging review of some of the major issues in development economics focuses on the role of economic and political institutions. Drawing on the latest findings in institutional economics and political economy, Pranab Bardhan, a leader in the field of development economics, offers a relatively nontechnical discussion of current thinking on these issues from the viewpoint of poor countries, synthesizing recent research and reflecting on where we stand today. The institutional framework of an economy defines and constrains the opportunities of individuals, determines the business climate, and shapes the incentives and organizations for collective action on the part of communities; Pranab Bardhan finds the institutional framework to be relatively weak in many poor countries. Institutional failures, weak accountability mechanisms, and missed opportunities for cooperative problem-solving become the themes of the book, with the role of distributive conflicts in the persistence of dysfunctional institutions a common thread. Special issues taken up include the institutions for securing property rights and resolving coordination failures; the structural basis of power; commitment devices and political accountability; the complex relationship between democracy and poverty (with examples from India, where both have been durable); decentralization and devolution of power; persistence of corruption; ethnic conflicts; and impediments to collective action. Formal models are largely avoided, except in two chapters where Bardhan briefly introduces new models to elucidate currently under-researched areas. Other chapters review existing models, emphasizing the essential ideas rather than the formal details. Thus the book will be valuable not only for economists but also for social scientists and policymakers.


Abstract The Nord Stream project, which comprises two natural gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, eminently illustrates several of the ambiguities that pertain to the ability of coastal States to regulate the laying and operation of transit pipelines in their exclusive economic zone and, conversely, the extent of the right of other States to carry out such activities. A highly significant issue is how seabed surveys undertaken in preparation for the laying of pipelines should be characterized, and thus regulated, under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. What is to be considered a 'reasonable measure' by a coastal State is another crucial issue which, together with the extent of the requirement for consent by the coastal State for any specific pipeline route, are decisive for defining the balance between potentially competing interests relating to submarine transit pipelines.


Quantum computing is a fantastic technology that has been evolved throughout time and is 100 trillion times quicker than a supercomputer. It is based on quantum theory, which can do calculations using probability theory and linear algebra. These two disciplines of research are involved in all sub-areas of Data Science and other contemporary technology domains, and can answer a wide range of complex problems which even the most powerful supercomputer cannot carry out. Instead of just 0's and 1's where the classical computers encipher the data or convert the information, it works on qubit that is, it can hold up to two bits which is called as Quantum superposition where it has two different states zero or one in which it can be defined and is also possible for it to exist in both, i.e. a superposition of the two states. Light based quantum computer outperforms the classical super computer by exceeding its performance speed. Quantum computing can solve known problems such as encryption and cyber security. Quantum computing has the ability to process quickly to arrive at a solution and offers well and more computing power to the world of Artificial Intelligence systems and efficient Machine learning systems by solving small and large problems much faster. The main aim or objective of this paper is to discuss about the applications and importance of quantum computing in future which is very helpful to the people who are associated with cryptography, Aviation, Data Analytics, Forecasting, Medical research, Pattern matching, self-driving cars and so on.


The term creativity is somewhat amorphous in that it has several possible definitions. Despite the large body of literature exploring the idea of creativity and creative thinking along with the many theories and approaches that exist there are few papers describing and measuring these concepts. Creativity is often described as thinking outside the box. Creative thinking, the ability to be innovative and the ability to work as part of a team in the workplace are generic skills valued highly by employers. In the field of Biomedical science, where graduates will work in state laboratories, research labs or the pharmaceutical industry an ability to work as part of a team, obey orders and instructions from a team leader, follow through these activities, meet deadlines and communicate well are vitally important. Although creativity is regarded as an important employability skill, it is a quality which graduate and post graduate students are often perceived to lack. The development of creativity and team building exercises are skills often undermined as they are seen as soft skills, often not taken seriously and thus often not part of tertiary education. This paper showcases the teaching of a new first year module Creativity, Innovation and Teamwork to 1st Year Biomedical Scientists. The class was divided randomly into teams each of which was led by a self-nominated team leader. The module was examined entirely by continuous assessment. Tasks designed for each team included the issuing of weekly newsletters, a blog, a presentation on a Biomedical topic of interest as well as preparation of a number of posters. In order to promote support and foster creativity in our students, assignments and assessments have to be well thought-out, thought-provoking and feedback needs to be positive and timely. One mechanism to do this is the implementation of an experience diary in the form of a blog for students. Blogs offer great promise in overcoming one of the major hurdles of the constraints of traditional educational systems. Blogs allow students to collect all their experiences and draw upon them to generate new ways of looking at situations. The blogging tool used in parallel throughout this course gives insight into how students cope within teams; many discuss difficulties they are having in the course as well as other courses. The pedagogical paradigm that supports the use of blogs in educational settings is Vygotsky's educational theory. This Russian psychologist believed that children learned from social interaction. The person's social environment plays an important role in determining which stimuli are choreographed and paid attention to by the individual. The construction of knowledge is the outcome. Blogs can allow us to get to know our students outside of the classroom. We get to see their likes and dislikes. Many discuss their motivation or lack of it, their favourite lectures, the difficulties and challenges associated with meeting deadlines and their workload. In a final reflection, students look back on the module and discuss their learning experience. Many discuss their difficulties in working in a team, how workloads can fall on the same people and how concerns arise over all team players being rewarded with the same good grades when the work was carried out by only a few. Students gain insight into the challenges and difficulties which can arise from working in a team


Particle filter (PF) is a fully non-linear filter with Bayesian conditional probability estimation, compared here with the well-known ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF). A Gaussian resampling (GR) method is proposed to generate the posterior analysis ensemble in an effective and efficient way. The Lorenz model is used to test the proposed method. The PF with Gaussian resampling (PFGR) can approximate more accurately the Bayesian analysis. The present work demonstrates that the proposed PFGR possesses good stability and accuracy and is potentially applicable to large-scale data assimilation problems.


The primary purpose of this evaluation was (a) to identify the needs of the professionals enrolled in a General English course in one government entity in Colombia, (b) to determine whether the current language training program meets those needs, and (c) to provide a sound basis for decision-making regarding future language training program. To this end, four evaluation questions were addressed in four phases, following the utilization-focused evaluation (UFE) framework. Data were collected from the professionals working in this entity (n=66), high-management officials in charge making decisions (n=2) and the program administrator, using the following instruments: focus groups, interviews, observations and a survey questionnaire. In phase one, 38 domain experts participated in focus groups and structured interviews. In phase two, a questionnaire survey was decided to be used as the methods for further data collection on needs. In phase three a task-based needs analysis was conducted to determine the frequency of tasks that require using English at the workplace. Following the data collection, the professionals were tested for academic reading and general proficiency (92% response rate and 100% respectively). In phase four, a meta-evaluation was performed. Data were analyzed using thematic coding and descriptive statistics. The findings revealed the discrepancies between the participants' subjective and objective needs. Moreover, on the basis of the findings, this evaluation proposes an ESP course as an answer to the complexity of needs in this government entity


textabstract1. Introduction

"After nearly three centuries of utterly failed prophesies and misrepresentations of both present and past, it seems time to carry the secularization doctrine to the graveyard of failed theories, and there to whisper 'requiescat in pace'" (Stark 1999: 269). Stark's words, published just before the turn of the century, may count on much approval among sociologists of religion today. Secularization theory has been discredited because of its inability to account for religious change in the modern world (e.g., Berger, 1999; Heelas and Woodhead, 2005; Houtman and Mascini, 2002) and because of its sheer broadness and lack of specificity, as emphasized by Hadden (1987: 587), for instance, when he noted that it is a "hotchpotch of loosely employed ideas rather than a systematic theory".
Secularization theory's two principal subtheses, the 'decline-of-religion thesis' and the 'privatization thesis' (Casanova, 1994), have both become increasingly contested and recent research even suggests that these two aspects of secularization may develop in a remarkably uneven way. That idea is put forward by Achterberg et al. (2009), who point out that the decline of Christian religion in the West spawns its public revitalization rather than its further privatization. This paper elaborates on this by assessing the empirical merits of two objections that suggest that these recent findings may after all not contradict the established notion that religious decline and religious privatization occur in tandem.


Randomised controlled trials concerning antibiotic prophylaxis are lacking and reported incidence of late infections after dental procedures is probably underestimated by the high rate of antibiotic prescription in the past and the difficulty in establishing the origin of late infection. Bacteraemia after dental procedures has been proven, especially in infected areas and, given the serious morbidity of late prosthetic joint infections, antibiotic prophylaxis is advised, particularly for patients with risk factors such as rheumatoid arthritis and haemophilia.


Sense2Health is a Quantified Self application that monitors personal exposure to environment pollution and assesses its heath-related risks. The novelty of the application is that it requires little to no active involvement by users and unlike existing applications, it correlates the individual's well-being to their environment as opposed to their physical activity alone. Consequently, when health and environment data are acquired, our application enables users to better identify behavior changes towards enhancing their health by enhancing their environments. Furthermore, Sense2Health is an open platform for integrating existing domain-specific sensing applications (environmental and health monitoring) focused on decreasing required specialized development efforts. We present in this paper the design of Sense2Health in addition to a proof-of-concept implementation for a noise-monitoring use case. Afterwards, we assess its performance while integrating it with a dedicated open source noise sensing application.


STUDY OBJECTIVES
To investigate the risk of in-hospital falls among patients receiving medications commonly used for insomnia in the hospital setting.

METHODS
Retrospective cohort study of all adult hospitalizations to a large academic medical center from 1/2007 to 7/2013. We excluded patients admitted for a primary psychiatric disorder. Medication exposures of interest, defined by pharmacy charges, included benzodiazepines, non-benzodiazepine benzodiazepine receptor agonists (BZRAs), trazodone, atypical antipsychotics, and diphenhydramine. In-hospital falls were ascertained from an online patient safety reporting system.

RESULTS
Among the 225,498 hospitalizations (median age = 57 years; 57.9% female) in our cohort, 84,911 (37.7%) had exposure to at least one of the five medication classes of interest; benzodiazepines were the most commonly used (23.5%), followed by diphenydramine (8.3%), trazodone (6.6%), BZRAs (6.4%), and atypical antipsychotics (6.3%). A fall occurred in 2,427 hospitalizations (1.1%). The rate of falls per 1,000 hospital days was greater among hospitalizations with exposure to each of the medications of interest, compared to unexposed: 3.6 versus 1.7 for benzodiazepines (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] 1.8, 95%CI 1.6-1.9); 5.4 versus 1.8 for atypical antipsychotics (aHR 1.6, 95%CI 1.4-1.8); 3.0 versus 2.0 for BZRAs (aHR 1.5, 95%CI 1.3-1.8); 3.3 versus 2.0 for trazodone (aHR 1.2, 95%CI 1.1-1.5); and 2.5 versus 2.0 for diphenhydramine (aHR 1.2, 95%CI 1.03-1.5).

CONCLUSIONS
In this large cohort of hospitalizations at an academic medical center, we found an association between each of the sedating medications examined and in-hospital falls. Benzodiazepines, BZRAs, and atypical antipsychotics had the strongest associations.


The Supreme Court's ruling was predictable, given the Court's previous preemption decisions. However, it's a disappointment to the initiative's proponents and to a larger group of environmental advocates who seek to promote California's rapid transition from reliance on heavily-polluting and climate-damaging fossil fuels to renewable energy resources. But the good news is that this goal can still be achieved through other legal and political strategies.


Current popular machine learning techniques in natural language processing and data mining rely heavily on high-quality text sources. Nevertheless, real-world text datasets contain a significant amount of spelling errors and improperly punctuated variants where the performance of these models would quickly deteriorate. Moreover, existing text normalization methods are prohibitively expensive to execute over web-scale datasets, can hardly process noisy texts from social networks, or require annotations to learn the corrections in a supervised manner. In this paper, we present Flan (Fast LSH Algorithm for Text Normalization), a scalable randomized algorithm to clean and canonicalize massive text data. Our approach suggests corrections based on the morphology of the words, where lexically similar words are considered the same with high probability. We efficiently handle the pairwise word-to-word comparisons via locality sensitive hashing (LSH). We also propose a novel stabilization process to address the issue of hash collisions between dissimilar words, which is a consequence of the randomized nature of LSH and is exacerbated by the massive scale of real-world datasets. Compared with existing approaches, our method is more efficient, both asymptotically and in empirical evaluations, does not rely on feature engineering, and does not require any annotation. Our experimental results on real-world datasets demonstrate the efficiency and efficacy of Flan. Based on recent advances in densified Minhash, our approach requires much less computational time compared to baseline text normalization techniques on large-scale Twitter and Reddit datasets. In a human evaluation of the quality of the normalization, Flan achieves 5% and 14% improvement against the baselines over the Reddit and Twitter datasets, respectively. Our method also improves performance on Twitter sentiment classification applications and the perturbed GLUE benchmark datasets, where we introduce random errors into the text.


Banana (Musa spp) is a very big agricultural commodity in Indonesia. Its easy grows up characteristic in Indonesia, making it cultivated a lot by community. One part of banana that still underutilized is banana frond. Banana frond has enough useful content in health sector. There are tannin and saponin which functioned as natural antiseptic substances. In addition, banana sap containing two substances that have a role in curing the wound, which are flavonoid and ascorbic acid. Rawasari village, Tembalang districts, Semarang city is marginal village that has great banana potency but human resources quality there still uneducated or unable to utilize natural resources in that village, based on per January 2014 data , there were 47% population are not entering elementary school, and most of them having professions as farm workers. Looking those background we make innovation that can utilize banana waste to be hand sanitizer with brand name is handsang. Its approaching method by PRA method (Participatory Rural Appraisal), which is understanding condition in the target area, so that community can participate actively. Implementation methods are socialization, three times meeting mentoring, and evaluation as partner introduction. The manufacturing process are taking banana frond , taking banana extract by using juicer, extract frond banana filtration, sterilization, appropriate dose measurement, materials mixing, and packaging. Until now, there is Women Business Group that has been established, that has been registered in UMKM Semarang, and still queue to get brand right to register in 2015 period. Keywords: Banana, banana sap, Rowosari, hand sanitizer, handsang


The high-voltage battery represents the key component of electrified automotive drive-trains. State-of-the-art lithium-ion cells (LIC) are commonly used due to their high specific energy. The cells are stacked and reinforced by a rigid frame. In addition to mechanical loads during operation, this substructure must also withstand inherent stresses caused by the swelling of the cells. A mechanical failure of the frame results at best in a vehicle breakdown but may also cause a short-circuit and catastrophic thermal propagation in one or more cells. Here we propose a novel method to monitor cell modules in-operando based on the measurement of the cell impedance. There are various sensitivities of the impedance, such as regarding temperature or State-of-Charge, but, as will be shown, it is also influenced by external mechanical loads. Two experimental setups are conducted. First, a simple test is presented during which the phenomenon was initially observed. Secondly, another experiment is carried out to resolve the presumed sensitivity across relevant compression forces. The measurements confirm the initially observed phenomenon. Finally a brief perspective for an effective and industrializable monitoring system is given.


In 1995, a study found that the socioeconomic benefits from a legalized commercial harvest of sea turtle eggs in Ostional (Costa Rica) were substantial and widely recognized by Ostional residents. Legal and administrative structures ensured community participation in and control of resource use, and evidence indicated support for community-based conservation (CBC) was high. In 2004, the study was repeated to assess how perceptions of the egg harvest might have changed over time. There were continued high levels of support for conservation and positive perceptions of the project's impacts on the economy, environment and community. Some explanations for impact rankings have changed, with greater emphasis on the importance of conservation and awareness of how this is achieved, greater animosity towards one government agency and greater concern about the impacts of tourism on the egg harvesting project. Between surveys, a variety of social, political and economic changes have occurred. The CBC concept has been further refined and critiqued; by examining a CBC project over time, this paper considers the durability and flexibility of the incentive, legal and administrative structures associated with a successful example of CBC.


A four-pass algorithm for drawing directed graphs is presented. The fist pass finds an optimal rank assignment using a network simplex algorithm. The seconds pass sets the vertex order within ranks by an iterative heuristic, incorporating a novel weight function and local transpositions to reduce crossings. The third pass finds optimal coordinates for nodes by constructing and ranking an auxiliary graph. The fourth pass makes splines to draw edges. The algorithm creates good drawings and is fast. >


Delivery of education content to learners in many learning environments has greatly been enhanced by the deployment and implementation of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the world today. Many developing countries are putting in place strategies to ensure their education systems use ICT to improve and diversify learning to meet the global changes in technology. In Kenya, ICT Integration in Primary Education is one of the key flagship programmes that has received keen attention by the government in the past few years through the primary schools Digital Literacy Programme (DLP). This research endeavoured to establish the e-readiness of primary schools implementing use of digital devices in Kisii County. Survey research design was applied in the study. The population of the study constituted of 710 primary school head teachers, 1,420 standard one and two teachers and 71,000 standard one and two pupils. Sample size was determined using the fisher formula and the sample consisted of 249 primary school head teachers, 302 standard one and two teachers and 381 standard one and two pupils. Purposive sampling was used to select schools, head teachers and teachers. Simple random sampling was used to select the specific schools to include in the study and proportionate sampling was used to determine the number of respondents from each school. The research instruments applied in the research included self-administered questionnaires for teachers and head teachers and interview schedules for pupils. To ascertain the reliability of the research instruments, a pilot test was carried out and a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.76 was realized. Data was analysed qualitatively and quantitatively using descriptive statistics in SPSS.The research established that the main impediment to implementation of the DLP was the psychological and financial readiness within the schools. There should be a well planned training schedule for teachers and a budget be put in place for the primary schools for the DLP.


This study was conducted to compare different variables of social self-efficacy (SSE) as determinants for adolescents in selecting and taking part in team and individual sports. Four sporting codes were selected for study: table tennis, swimming, handball, and basketball. Participants were 100 adolescents who had played their chosen sport for an average of 5.4 years. Results showed that the difference in SSE between those playing table tennis and those playing handball was significant, as was the difference between those playing table tennis and those playing basketball, swimming and handball, swimming and basketball. No statistical difference was found in SSE between those playing table tennis and those involved in swimming, and handball and basketball. Likewise, there was no statistically significant difference between SSE scores according to gender for any of the sports. Nor was there any significant difference between the socioeconomic status (SES) of the participants according to the sport they played and the arithmetic average of their SSE scores. A negative correlation was noted ( p > .05) between the sporting code and the SES of participants.


Introduction: Labor pain is one of the most severe human pains, which has mental and physical side-effects on pregnant women and their fetuses. One of the most ancient complementary methods used to relieve labor pain is massage. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of back massage on labor pain in women attending Bentolhoda maternity hospital in Bojnord city (northeast Iran) in 2005. Material and Methods: In this single blind clinical trial, that only assessor was blind 62 primiparous pregnant women with gestational age 37-42 weeks, who had singleton pregnancy with vertex presentation and were candidate for normal vaginal delivery were recruited. Number of cases was defined on other trials.Then the women were randomized every other day and were divided in two groups. Back massage in the experimental group (n=32) was continuous, firm, and steady for 30 minutes and the women in the control group (n=30) received 30 minutes routine nursing care in any three phases of labor. By using the visual analogue scale (VAS), the intensity of pain before and after the massage or routine care was compared between the two groups in the latent phase (cervical dilation 3-4 cm), active phase (cervical dilation 5-7 cm), and transitional phase (cervical dilation 8-10 cm) of the labor. In order to collect data an interview and observation sheet were filled out. The data were analyzed using statically tests such as X2, and Student's t tests by using SPSS soft ware. Result: The women in the experimental group had significantly lower pain in the latent (p<0/001), active (p<0/001), and transitional phases (p<0.001).The mean pain score before and after back massage was significantly different in the experimental group (p<0/001 for each phase). There was significant difference between longevity of contraction and numerous of vaginal examination and mean scores of group on mean score pain before and after intervention in the latent phase (p<0/001). Conclusion: This study indicated that back massage reduce pain intensity in the first stage of labor.


With respect to cervical cancer management, Finland and the Netherlands are comparable in relevant characteristics, e.g., fertility rate, age‐of‐mother at first birth and a national screening programme for several years. The aim of this study is to compare trends in incidence of and mortality from cervical cancer in Finland and the Netherlands in relation to the introduction and intensity of the screening programmes. Therefore, incidence and mortality rates were calculated using the Cancer Registries of Finland and the Netherlands. Data on screening intensity were obtained from the Finnish Cancer Registry and the Dutch evaluation centre at ErasmusMC‐Rotterdam. Women aged 30–60 have been screened every 5 years, in Finland since 1992 and in the Netherlands since 1996. Screening protocols for smear taking and referral to the gynaecologist are comparable. Incidence and mortality rates have declined more in Finland. In 2003, age‐adjusted incidence and mortality in Finland were 4.0 and 0.9 and in the Netherlands 4.9 and 1.4 per 100,000 woman‐years, respectively. Excess smear use in the Netherlands was estimated to be 24 per 1,000 women during a 5‐year interval compared to 121 in Finland. The decline in mortality in Finland seems to be almost completely related to the screening programme whereas in the Netherlands it was initially considered to be a natural decline. Differences in risk factors might also play a role: the Netherlands has higher population density and higher percentages of immigrants and (female) smokers. The greater excess smear use in Finland might also have affected incidence. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Objective: We report a rare case of acute obstructive suppuration of the pancreatic duct causing sepsis, which was successfully treated with emergent endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP). Methods: We describe the patient's clinical presentation, laboratory test results, and imaging used for diagnosis and treatment. Results: A 33-year-old female with a history of recurrent acute pancreatitis was admitted during an episode of acute pancreatitis. Computed tomography (CT) scan of the abdomen revealed acute pancreatitis, diffuse pancreatic atrophy and pancreatic ductal dilatation with obstruction due to a soft tissue lesion within the distal duct. Shortly after admission she developed symptoms and signs of sepsis. Urgent ERCP was performed to further assess the suspected cholangitis. "Clean" bile emanated from the common bile duct, while copious purulent  fluid was detected at the dilated pancreatic duct orifice, confirming suppuration of the pancreatic duct. A plastic single pigtail stent was placed traversing the ampulla and pancreatic duct stones that were causing the obstruction, which were later removed. After endoscopic decompression, the patient rapidly improved over the following 24 hours and had no subsequent admissions for pancreatitis. Conclusion: Acute suppuration of the pancreatic duct (ASPD) is a rare and potentially fatal infectious complication of pancreatic ductal obstruction with few cases reported in the English literature. It would be of interest to further investigate the exact pathophysiology leading to development of ASPD. The endoscopic methods of urgent ERCP and pancreatic duct decompression utilized in our case proved effective in successfully treating ASPD. This unusual condition should be considered in patients with acute pancreatitis who develop early clinical decompensation.


This article appraises the impressions of technical and price or allocative inefficiency on elasticity of the supply of wheat and demand of its inputs in 27 provinces of Iran. To this purpose, first the technical, price and economic efficiency has been calculated utilizing the stochastic frontier functions of production and cost. The influencing factors of efficiency including: the degree of scale economies, the share of technology in manufacturing process, the share of governmental supports, the cost of production processes and the experience have been estimated via a panel data approach. At the end, rejecting the hypothesis of perfect efficiency of farmers in production, the functions of output supply and input demand have been assessed in two scenarios (concerning efficiency and inefficiency) using a profit function and the impact of general (economic) inefficiency on relative and crossover elasticities of output and input are evaluated. The results show that the average of technical, price and economic efficiency of irrigated wheat respectively equal to 69, 63 and 45 percent. The estimated parameters have been affected, concerning the inefficiency. Although relative elasticities of output and inputs are appeared with expected signs, entering the inefficiency, elasticity of irrigated wheat is generally increased.


The
black-box impedance of the voltage source converters (VSCs) can be directly identified
at the converter terminal without access to its internal control details, which
greatly facilitates the converter-grid interactions. However, since the limited
impedance data amount in practical industrial applications, the existing impedance
identification methods cannot accurately capture characteristics of the
impedance model at various operating scenarios, which is the indicators of the VSCs
system stability at the changing profiles of renewables and loads. In this paper,
a transfer learning based impedance identification is proposed to fill this research
gap. This method can significantly reduce the required data amount used in impedance
identification so that the black-box impedance-based stability method could be applied
for the practical industrial application. The comparison results confirm the accuracy
of the impedance model obtained by this transfer learning based impedance
identification method.


The establishment of the HealthWeb project by twelve health sciences libraries provides a collaborative means of organizing and enhancing access to Internet resources for the international health sciences community. The project is based on the idea that the Internet is common ground for all libraries and that through collaboration a more comprehensive, robust, and long-lasting information product can be maintained. The participants include more than seventy librarians from the health sciences libraries of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), an academic consortium of twelve major research universities. The Greater Midwest Region of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine serves as a cosponsor. HealthWeb is an information resource that provides access to evaluated, annotated Internet resources via the World Wide Web. The project vision as well as the progress reported on its implementation may serve as a model for other collaborative Internet projects.


We modeled the radio non-detection of two Type Ia supernovae (SNe), SN 2011fe and SN 2014J, considering synchrotron emission from the interaction between SN ejecta and the circumstellar medium. For ejecta whose outer parts have a power-law density structure, we compare synchrotron emission with radio observations. Assuming that 20% of the bulk shock energy is being shared equally between electrons and magnetic fields, we found a very low-density medium around both the SNe. A less tenuous medium with particle density ∼1 cm−3, which could be expected around both SNe, can be estimated when the magnetic field amplification is less than that presumed for energy equipartition. This conclusion also holds if the progenitor of SN 2014J was a rigidly rotating white dwarf (WD) with a main-sequence (MS) or red giant companion. For a He star companion, or a MS for SN 2014J, with 10% and 1% of bulk kinetic energy in magnetic fields, we obtain mass-loss rates of and for a wind velocity of 100 . The former requires a mass accretion efficiency of >99% onto the WD, but is less restricted for the latter case. However, if the tenuous medium is due to a recurrent nova, it is difficult from our model to predict synchrotron luminosities. Although the formation channels of SNe 2011fe and 2014J are not clear, the null detection in radio wavelengths could point toward a low amplification efficiency for magnetic fields in SN shocks.


We present work towards expanding the capabilities of microfluidic cell culture devices through the incorporation of microelectronic sensing systems. A system has been fabricated that includes four sensing regions each consisting of a pH sensor, capacitance sensor, and photodiode. We have demonstrated the incorporation of feedback control systems using computer controlled microfluidics for a pH sensor. Preliminary data for photodiode characterization, pH detection using ISFETs, and capacitance sensing of cell density is presented. Results from this work will be used towards creating a single system that can function as a cell culture platform with programmable control over all of these variables.


Transgression of a thermokarst coastline results in the development of a distinctive coastal morphology consisting of breached thermokarst lakes, separated by narrow headlands fringed by barrier-spit complexes and sandflats. A detailed description of the geomorphology and sediment facies of one such area east of North Head in the Canadian Beaufort Sea is combined with seismic and core analysis from the adjacent inner shelf to develop a sedimentologic model for use in interpolating geotechnical conditions in the region. The model proposes the sedimentary successions that develop during transgression in a number of sub-environments related to the thermokarst morphology. It differs from conventional shoreface evolution models in that thermokarst processes create additional accommodation space at the coastline. This extra space, formerly occupied by ground ice, is rapidly filled by coastal and shelf lithosomes, the latter consisting principally of mud from the nearby Mackenzie River.


In this study, the suitability of using Iranian grown giant milkweed fibers (GFs) as a new raw material for thermoplastic composites was investigated. The thermoplastic polymer, polypropylene (PP) was used as the matrix polymer and the maleated polypropylene, Epolene G3003TM, was used as coupling agent. In the sample preparation, four levels of fiber loading (10, 20, 30, and 40 wt%) and three levels of coupling agent content (0, 1.5, and 3 wt%) were applied to discuss the mechanical properties of composites. GF/PP composites were prepared by a melt compounding process in a twin-screw extruder followed by injection moulding. Generally, with the addition of coupling agent tensile and flexural properties improved considerably compared with pure matrix and control specimens (without coupling agent). As expected, notched Izod impact strength significantly decreased as the mixing ratio of fiber increased. The results of the present study reveal that composites with good strength properties could be successfully developed using GF as the reinforcing agent.


Dermatologic surgical procedures can be performed in the pediatric patient in an outpatient setting. Although the surgical techniques involved are the same as those used in adult medicine, special attention must be given to anesthesia and patients' fears when dealing with pediatric patients. In this communication, some insights relating to pediatric surgical procedures performed at Duke University Medical Center's Dermatologic Surgery Unit are presented.


Structural change analysis has been a distinctive feature of economics since its formative period. This authoritative three-volume collection presents a comprehensive selection of the key contributions to the topic. "The Economics of Structural Change" shows the central role that compositional dynamics plays in the analysis of fluctuations, development, employment and economy-environment interactions. Volume I covers concepts and theories in the economics of structural change; Volume II includes specific contributions to structural theories of growth, cycles and technological change; and Volume III focuses on specific areas in the empirics of structural change analysis.


This article sheds new light on an understudied construct in mainstream management theory, namely, work alienation. This is an important area of study because previous research indicates that work alienation is associated with important individual and organizational outcomes. We tested four antecedents of work alienation: decision-making autonomy, task variety, task identity, and social support. Moreover, we examined two outcomes of alienation: deviance and performance, the former measured 1 year after the independent variables were measured, and the latter as rated by supervisors. We present evidence from a sample of 283 employees employed at a construction and consultancy organization in the United Kingdom. The results supported the majority of our hypotheses, indicating that alienation is a worthy concept of exploration in the management sciences.


The effect of income inequality on savings and consumption has remained an open empirical issue despite several decades of research. Results obtained in this study indicate that income inequality and private consumption are both I(1) nonstationary variables that are cointegrated, and inequality has had a negative effect on private consumption in Central-European and Nordic countries. Results for Anglo-Saxon countries are inconclusive. These findings suggest that previous empirical research may have produced biased results on the effect of inequality on savings by assuming that inequality would be a stationary variable.


PURPOSE: Congenital Muscular Torticollis (CMT) is an abnormal twisting of the head and neck due to the contraction of the sternocleidomastoid (SCM) muscle. Treatment options include physical therapy, botulinum toxin injections, and surgical SCM lengthening. In this study, we aim to present the efficacies of the various treatment options for CMT. METHODS: A retrospective cohort analysis was


In order to study the collimation and acceleration mechanism of relativistic jets, the jet streamline of M87 at milliarcsecond scale is extensively investigated with images from VSOP observations at 1.6 and 5 GHz. Thanks to the higher angular resolution of VSOP, especially in the direction transverse to the jet, we resolved the jet streamline into three ridgelines at the scale of milli arcseconds. While the properties of the outer two ridgelines are in good agreement with those measured in previous observations and can be expressed by one power-law line with a power law index of 1.7, an inner ridgeline is clearly observed for the first time. We compared the measured size with the outermost streamline expected by Blandford & Znajek's parabolic solutions, which are anchored at the event horizon, with different black hole spin parameters. We revealed that the observed inner ridgeline is narrower than the prediction, suggesting the origin of the inner ridgeline to be part of a spine originating from the spinning black hole. The inner ridgeline becomes very dim at large distances from the central engine at 5 GHz. We considered two possible cases for this; Doppler beaming and/or radiative cooling. Either case seems to be reasonable for its explanation, and future multi-frequency observations will discriminate those two possibilities.


A new LiFePO4-based phase composite LiFe0.95Ti0.05PO4/(C+LiFeP2O7)was synthesized by solid state method . The amorphous carbon and phosphate LiFeP2O7 consisted of the protective layer and coated the surface of the solid solution LiFe0.95Ti0.05PO4 The phosphate LiFeP2O7 was detected though XRD(X-ray diffraction)and CV(cyclic voltammetry).Morphology of the composite was observed by scanning electron microscope(SEM)and Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), it illustrated Ti4+ had been induced into the crystal lattice of LiFePO4 and formed the solid solution LiFe0.95Ti0.05PO4.The data of charge-discharge tests showed the composite had excellent electrochemical properties. Initial charge and discharge capacity of LiFe0.95Ti0.05PO4/(C+LiFeP2O7) had reached 157.9mAh/g and 155.2mAh/g at the rate of 0.1 C, respectively. At 1C, the discharge capacity of the composite remained 125mAh/g after 100 cycles.


NOTE: This position paper has been coordinated among the software specialists of certification authorities from the United States, Europe, and Canada. However, it does not constitute official policy or guidance from any of the authorities. This document is provided for educational and informational purposes only and should be discussed with the appropriate certification authority when considering for actual projects.


It has been widely received that one of Gregor Mendel's most important contribution to the history of genetics is his novel work on developmental information (for example, the proposal of the famous Mendelian ratios like 1:2:1, 3:1, and 9:3:3:1). This view is well evidenced by the fact that much of early Mendelians' work in the 1900s focuses on the retrodiction (i.e. the re-analysis of the pre-exist data with Mendel's approach). However, there is no consensus on what Mendel meant by development (Entwicklung). Nor is there an agreement on the interpretation of Mendel's laws of developmental series (Entwicklungsreihe). This chapter revisits Mendel's notions of development and developmental series. First, I argue that Mendel's use of development is greatly influenced by Gärtner's. Second, I show Mendel's work on developmental series are novel and important for its new ways of experimentation, conceptualisation, and analysis. Third, I argue that Mendel's laws of developmental information were not about heredity.


Objective Adiposity predictors, body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), and blood leptin and total adiponectin levels were associated with components of cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) and brain volumetry in 503 adults with CSVD who were ≥50 years of age and enrolled in the Radboud University Nijmegen Diffusion Tensor and Magnetic Resonance Imaging Cohort (RUN DMC). Methods RUN DMC participants were followed up for 9 years (2006–2015). BMI, WC, brain imaging, and dementia diagnoses were evaluated at baseline and follow-up. Adipokines were measured at baseline. Brain imaging outcomes included CSVD components, white matter hyperintensities, lacunes, microbleeds, gray and white matter, hippocampal, total brain, and intracranial volumes. Results Cross-sectionally among men at baseline, higher BMI, WC, and leptin were associated with lower gray matter and total brain volumes, and higher BMI and WC were associated with lower hippocampal volume. At follow-up 9 years later, higher BMI was cross-sectionally associated with lower gray matter volume, and an obese WC (>102 cm) was protective for ≥1 lacune or ≥1 microbleed in men. In women, increasing BMI and overweight or obesity (BMI ≥25 kg/m2 or WC >88 cm) were associated with ≥1 lacune. Longitudinally, over 9 years, a baseline obese WC was associated with decreasing hippocampal volume, particularly in men, and increasing white matter hyperintensity volume in women and men. Conclusions Anthropometric and metabolic adiposity predictors were differentially associated with CSVD components and brain volumetry outcomes by sex. Higher adiposity is associated with a vascular-neurodegenerative spectrum among adults at risk for vascular forms of cognitive impairment and dementias.


With the rapid growth of available web services developed by different organizations, clustering of web services is required for conveniently managing services such as web services selection, discovery, composition and QoS prediction. However, the traditional clustering approaches have some drawbacks in similarity measuring and information preprocessing. In this paper, a similarity model is presented to measure the similarity between web services. Based on this model, a special preprocessing approach is proposed, which considers the programming style and naming rules. The proposed approach is combined with the SCAN algorithm and evaluated through the planned experiments. The experimental results show that the proposed model and approach can effectively improve clustering of web services and further improve the web service-based applications such as service discovery, composition and QoS prediction.


The Web 2.0 has become a buzzword that is used to illustrate a wide range of online activities and applications. In fact, Web 2.0 enhances tremendously the chance to detect and re-examine cognitive, social psychological and interpersonal communication models. Moreover, cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon which refers to discomfort felt at a discrepancy between what you already know or believe, and new information or interpretation. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to debate the following questions: do Web 2.0 create cognitive dissonance? In what extent? What are the consequences for younger people? And, does computer ethics may help?


This report describes the results of a desktop assessment of land south of Manor Farm at Lower Sundon, Bedfordshire, commonly known as Sundon Park. The Study Area formed part of the home park of the manor of Sundon during the medieval and post-medieval periods, before the house was demolished in the early 19th century. In medieval times this was joined on to a much larger deer park, the form of which can still be traced on early maps and to some extent observed on the ground. Surviving earthworks include hollow ways, ridge-and-furrow, close boundaries, large house platform, lake or pond, and a large polygonal feature of unknown date and function. Clues to the location of other parts of the manorial complex, such as windmill and dovecote, can be deduced from fieldname evidence. It is thought that in the early 17th century the landscape around the house was transformed into a formal landscape garden, while in the following century it was reworked again into a more natural-looking landscape. On demolition of the house, the landscape garden reverted back to farmland.


This study aimed to assess the possible association between two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the autoimmune regulator (AIRE) gene (rs2075876 G/A and rs760426 A/G) with the risk of primary immune thrombocytopenia (ITP), as well as AIRE serum levels, in the Egyptian population. In this case-control study, 96 cases with primary ITP and 100 healthy subjects were included. Two SNPs of the AIRE gene (rs2075876 G/A and rs760426 A/G) were genotyped via Taqman allele discrimination real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Additionally, serum AIRE levels were measured using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique. After adjusting for age, gender, and family history of ITP, the AIRE rs2075876 AA genotype and A allele were associated with increased ITP risk (adjusted odds ratio (aOR): 4.299, p = 0.008; aOR: 1.847, p = 0.004, respectively). Furthermore, there was no significant association between AIRE rs760426 A/G different genetic models and ITP risk. A linkage disequilibrium revealed that A-A haplotypes were associated with an increased ITP risk (aOR: 1.821, p = 0.020). Serum AIRE levels were found to be significantly lower in the ITP group, positively correlated with platelet counts, and were even lower in the AIRE rs2075876 AA genotype and A allele, as well as A-G and A-A haplotype carriers (all p < 0.001). The AIRE rs2075876 genetic variants (AA genotype and A allele) and A-A haplotype are associated with an increased ITP risk in the Egyptian population and lower serum AIRE levels, whereas the SNP rs760426 A/G is not.


In the present study a detailed analysis was made of the oral and written language skills of 60 native Dutch and 120 non-native third and fourth grade students at Dutch primary schools. First of all, the achievement on a variety of oral language and reading and writing tasks were examined as a function of ethnic group and grade level. In addition, a principal component analysis was conducted on the test scores in the two groups of children. Finally, the prediction of reading comprehension achievement in terms of oral language and decoding skills in the two groups was determined.The results showed that the non-native children leave behind their native Dutch peers on most language tasks administered. Especially on vocabulary measures and reading comprehension tests the second language students attain relatively poor achievements. With children's progression of grade the differences between first and second learners tend to diverge rather than converge. With respect to principal component analysis it was found that four factors underlie the language proficiency in either group: oral proficiency, reading comprehension, decoding efficiency and writing ability. To a large entent the children's achievement in reading comprehension in both groups could be explained in terms of their oral proficiency and decoding efficiency. However, for the second language learners the level of reading comprehension ability turned out to be relatively more dependent on their oral proficiency level in Dutch.


As the evidence grows about the critical role of women in agriculture, more and more agricultural development programs and projects aim to address the gender-based constraints to achieve their goals. The process starts with identification of the roles played by men and women in different agricultural activities. The main questions in identifying the roles include what are the main activities of men and women onand off-farm and how these activities contribute to production?; do men and women make productive decisions jointly?; do women have access to resources?. In case of livestock activities, the evidence on the roles and responsibilities of men and women is limited, particularly in Latin America. As more attention is targeted to increasing productivity in the livestock sector in Latin America, there is a greater need to increase the evidence on gender roles and intra-household decision-making process among livestock producers in this region.


Cross-linguistic studies on co-production of syntactic units and compound sentence formats have found that the
 location of predicates affects the projectability of the language, in that languages like English allow early projections while
 languages like Japanese later projections. In Mandarin Chinese, we found that syntactic parallelism often occurs before
 co-constructions, impacting the projectability of syntactic structures in one way or another. Based on the theories of dialogic
 syntax (Du Bois 2007, 2014) and the
 principles of interactional linguistics, this study explores the relationship between syntactic parallelism and co-production of
 syntactic structures across turns. The co-production of four syntactic and sentential structures were closely examined, namely,
 Copula V + Complement, (be) Adjectival Predicate, the conditional IF X THEN
 Y construction (如果
 ruguo……就/会 jiu/hui……), and compound
 sentences with to-clause of purpose. Also observed is the emergent new sequence as interactionally relevant
 syntax. Upon inspection, we found that turn units with parallel syntactic structures may help narrow down the category of the
 projected final component, thus inspiring the second speaker to come in early and jointly complete the syntax-in-progress. Apart
 from co-producing syntax-in-progress, co-produced structures can also develop into interactionally relevant sequences with
 independent internal structures, thereby executing new social actions.