Aim Climate is an important determinant of species distributions. We assess different aspects of risk arising from future climate change by quantifying changes in the spatial distribution of future climatic conditions compared with the recent past. Location Europe. Methods A 10' x 10' resolution gridded data set of five climate variables was used to calculate expected changes to the area, distance and direction of 1931-60 climatic conditions under the HadCM3 climate model for four future climate scenarios based on different rates of greenhouse gas emissions (SRES scenarios). Three levels of tolerance ranges determined the thresholds for which future conditions are considered analogous to 1931-60 (pre-warming) conditions. Results For many parts of Europe, areas with pre-warming analogous climate conditions will be smaller and further away in the future than they arc now. For any location in Europe, areas with pre-warming analogous mean annual temperature conditions will, on average, be reduced between 23.7% (B1 scenario) and 49.7% (A1FI scenario) by 2100 when assuming a medium tolerance range. The mean distance to these areas will, on average, increase between 272 km (B1) and 645 km (A1FI). These changes are more pronounced for temperature than for water availability variables and also for narrow tolerance ranges compared to wide tolerance ranges. Using a combined measure of both temperature and precipitation variables, areas with pre-warming analogous conditions are predicted to be in a more northeasterly direction in the future, but there are considerable regional differences within Europe. Main conclusions The results suggest that, for some parts of Europe, the loss of area with any suitable climatic conditions represents the greatest risk to biodiversity, but in other regions the distances that species may have to move to reach suitable climatic conditions may be a greater problem. Quantifying the distance and direction in analyses of change of climatically suitable areas can add additional information for climate change risk assessments.


Background & objectives: Stroke as a chronic disease requires patient's participation in the care. Inadequate education and self-care deficit in older adults can weaken and reduce the quality of life in them. E-Learning enables a new type of relationship gives patients, care, education, and patient-centeredness and experience. This study aimed to investigate the effect of e-learning on the quality of life in patients with stroke. Methods: In this semi-experimental study, 64 patients who referred to Al-Zahra hospital, neurology ward, hospital in 2013, according to inclusion criteria. Participant was randomly allocated in two groups of control and experiment. In the intervention group electronic education was implemented for one month. Data were collected based on the demographic characteristic, Stroke specific quality of life scale (SS-QOL). The measurement was performed before and after the electronic learning. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical tests of independent t-test and paired t-test. Results: At baseline, the mean scores of quality of life were not significantly different before intervention in the study and control groups. After intervention, quality of life score was significantly different between two groups. Mean scores of quality of life were 191 in the intervention group and 148.3 in control group (p<0.001). Conclusion: Electronic education improves the quality of life of stroke patients in the intervention group after education. According to the benefits of electronic education, using and planning of this method is recommended.


Transanal endoscopic microsurgery may be considered medically necessary for treatment of clinical T1 rectal adenocarcinomas than cannot be removed using other means of local excision and that meet all of the following criteria:  Located in the middle or upper part of the rectum  Well or moderately differentiated (G1 or G2)  Without lymphadenopathy or microscopic angiolymphatic invasion  Less than 1/3 the circumference of the rectum


This article is targeted at analyzing the advantages of using the case study method in the course of Business English at Scientific Research University – Higher School of Economics in Saint Petersburg. Cases offer a lot of opportunities for developing academic skills in reading, writing, listening and making presentations. Students get not only linguistic skills but also non-linguistic competences. Students are taught to work in teams, to analyze the data given in the task, to make decisions. Communicative and managerial skills are obtained as well. Special attention is paid to making team presentations. It is vital to mention that analysis and case solving can be compared to a play where students are actors trying to come up with a solution of a problem using the information given. This approach stimulates students to be more creative, decisive, communicative and goal-oriented. This method helps to achieve better results in developing academic skills while studying Business English. In this article, the importance of Russian companies' problems analyses is pushed forward.


Harp seals breed in pack-ice, a substrate which can vary substantially between whelping patches depending on differing environmental and oceanographic conditions. This study demonstrates clear site differences in pup vocalizations and mother pup behaviour between Northeast (Greenland Sea) and Northwest (Canadian Front) Atlantic harp seal populations. Classification trees showed a distinctive split between Front and Greenland Sea pup vocalisations. No clear sex differentiation in vocalizations was present for pups at the Front; 42% (n = 12) of male and 38% (n = 13) of female calls could be attributed to a given individual. In the Greenland Sea, 55% (n = 42) of female vocalisations were attributed to individuals compared with only 8% for males (n = 47). In addition behavioural observations of mother pup pairs were conducted (Front, n = 58; Greenland Sea, n = 78). Greenland Sea pups were found to nurse more, and were more alert than Front pups. Female attendance patterns also differed between sites: females at the Front were more likely to attend their pups than those in the Greenland Sea. This marked difference in female presence between sites could have several origins such as variability in ice conditions, predation pressure, or female condition.


Suicide is a major preventable cause of death. Prevention is facilitated by identification of populations at increased risk. It further requires the ability to estimate accurately the degree of risk in a given person at a given time and to intervene effectively. Considerable progress has been made in identifying high-risk groups. However, though demographic data identify large groups with greater than average risk (eg, the single, widowed, and divorced), they are far too general to be of practical use. They identify large numbers of persons who are never at risk. 1 That suicide rarely occurs in the absence of psychiatric illness 2-4 further defines the field of special concern. Still, only a minority of those so afflicted will commit suicide. The lifetime risk of suicide in affective disorder is about 15%, not 50% or 90%. 5 Thus, knowledge of the association between psychiatric illness and suicide falls far short of


Exploring the Architecture of Place in America's Farmers Markets draws attention to the simple but elusive architectural space of public and farmers markets. It discusses three seminal types of markets—heritage building, open-air pavilion, and pop-up canopy—demonstrating the characteristics of each type using a mixture of narrative and illustration. The narrative combines historically informed architectural observation with interview material drawn from conversations the author has had over the years with market managers, vendors, and shoppers. The illustrations include an appealing variety of photos, diagrams, and drawings that enabled the author to view each market through an architectural lens based on eight scales of measure—the hand, the container, the person, the stall, a grouping of stalls, the street, the block, and the market's situation within the neighborhood. Some of the architectural elements discussed include walls that layer, openings that frame, roofs that encompass, and niches that embrace. While each of the case studies illustrates shared characteristics of one of the architectural typologies, each farmers market is distinct in the specific ways it reflects the local culture and environment. Ultimately, in viewing markets through these three types and eight scales of measure we are able to better appreciate how farmers markets foster social interaction and community engagement. The book concludes with a broad look at the way of life and living that public and farmers markets have spawned, while looking ahead to what the author sees as an emerging new typology – the mobile market – which takes the bounty of local farmers to neighborhoods underserved with fresh healthy food, and otherwise known as food deserts. Market vendors speak enthusiastically about the qualitative benefits that farming life allows, and the greater good their individual choice provides for the general public and region. Likewise, a spectrum of governmental, commerce and community leaders champion the economic development farmers markets catalyze through allied business development and civic commitment.


Soft and collinear singularities, known collectively as infrared singularities here, plague the calculation of scattering amplitudes in gauge theories with massless particles such as QCD. The aim of this thesis is to describe methods of deriving amplitudes that are infrared finite and therefore do not suffer from this problem. We begin with an overview of scattering theory which includes a detailed discussion of the source of infrared singularities and outlines approaches that can be used to avoid them. Taking one of these approaches, namely that of dressed states, we give a detailed description of how such states can be constructed. We then proceed to give an explicit example calculation of the total cross section of the process e+e(^-) →2 jets at NLO. In this example we construct dressed amplitudes and demonstrate their lack of infrared singularities and then go on to show that the total cross section is the same as that calculated using standard field theory techniques. We then move on and attempt to improve the efficiency of calculations using dressed states amplitudes. We describe some of the problems of the method, specifically the large numbers of diagrams produced and the multiple different delta functions present in each amplitude. In attempting to fix these issues we demonstrate the difficulties of producing covariant amplitudes from this formalism. Finally we propose the use of the asymptotic interaction representation as a solution to these difficulties and outline a method of producing covariant infrared finite scattering amplitudes using this.


Since secondary safety systems have been implemented in modern cars successfully, the development of primary safety systems becomes more and more important. That causes the necessity of useful methods to estimate the benefit of these advanced safety systems. In this paper a new method for the benefit estimation of advanced safety systems by simulating real world crashes is presented. The bases of this simulation are real world crashes out of the GIDAS (German In-Depth Accident Study) database, including reconstruction data, accident sketches and safety systems specifications. The result of this method is a comparison between the simulated real accident scenario and the predicted accident scenario using a virtual prototype of the safety system. Using this comparison it is possible to estimate the benefit for the single case as well as the global benefit for all cases. The simulation will be done with a car dynamic simulation program. Therefore, interactions between sensor systems, brakes and steering controls can be considered. Furthermore, it is also possible to simulate crash involved cars with more than one safety system. The benefit will be estimated regarding accident avoidance and/or accident mitigation based on all available cases in GIDAS. Another possibility of such a simulation is to find out potentials of the further development of advanced safety systems or to develop new activating strategies by checking up parameters like yaw-angle, lateral acceleration or steering wheel angle. A method for the estimation of potential benefits of primary safety systems and exemplified results is outlined. The possibility of a dynamic simulation of real world accident initiations with and without virtual safety systems is considered. The results provide detailed information about useful combinations of advanced safety systems. The full text of this paper may be found at: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/esv/esv21/09-0162.pdf For the covering abstract see ITRD E145407.


Drag reduction induced by polymer additives in wall-bounded turbulence has been studied for decades. A small dosage of polymer additives can drastically reduce the energy dissipation in turbulent flows and alter the flow structures at the same time. As the polymerinduced fluid elasticity increases, drag reduction goes through several stages of transition with drastically different flow statistics. While much attention in the area of polymer-turbulence interactions has been focused on the onset and the asymptotic stage of maximum drag reduction, the transition between the two intermediate stages – low-extent drag reduction (LDR) and high-extent drag reduction (HDR) – likely reflects a qualitative change in the underlying vortex dynamics according to our recent study [1]. In particular, we proposed that polymers start to suppress the lift-up and bursting of vortices at HDR, leading to the localization of turbulent structures. To test our hypothesis, a statistically robust conditional sampling algorithm, based on Jenong and Hussain [2]'s work, was adopted in this study. The comparison of conditional eddies between the Newtonian and the highly elastic turbulence shows that (i) the lifting "strength" of vortices is suppressed by polymers as reflected by the decreasing lifting angle of the conditional eddy and (ii) the curvature of vortices is also eliminated as the orientation of the head of the conditional eddy changes. In summary, the results of conditional sampling support our hypothesis of polymer-turbulence interactions during the LDR-HDR transition.


Titanium nitride (TiN) is a new plasmonic material with advantages due to its greater thermal and chemical stability, compared to traditional metallic materials, i.e. gold and silver. TiN fabrication methods generally require reactive sputtering, which limits and complicates patterning capabilities. In this work, we demonstrate the fabrication of TiN films, as well as nano-patterned surfaces and three-dimensional (3D) structures by nitridation of crystalline titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticle-based structures. TiO2 films are created by spin coating nanoparticle-based solutions, and TiO2 patterns are fabricated directly via solvent-assisted soft nanoimprint lithography. TiO2 films and structures were annealed in air and then reacted with ammonia gas at 1000 °C for 0, 2, 4, or 6 hours. SEM analysis shows that patterned TiO2 surfaces and 3D structures retain their structural integrity after treatment, allowing for a convenient method of fabricating patterned TiN nanopatterned surfaces and structures. Treated samples demonstrate the crystalline transition from tetragonal to cubic, which is consistent with the transition from anatase TiO2 to TiN. Additionally, using spectroscopic ellipsometry, we observe a change in the real permittivity from positive to negative. For 0 and 6 hour treatments, the real permittivity changes from 3.1 to −9.6 (at 1000 nm). TiN has potential use for many plasmonic and metamaterial applications. In this work, we demonstrate the excitation of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) via grating coupling using 1 μm-period TiN line gratings.


A computerized system for monitoring dose - area product (DAP) has been developed for region of interest (ROI) fluoroscopy in which patient exposure is reduced using an x-ray attenuating filter with an aperture. The system includes an IBM compatible computer which is connected through an IEEE-488 interface to an electrometer which measures the charge from a DAP ionization chamber. A digital input/output board connects the computer to the filter placement device to determine whether the filter is in or out of the beam, and to the x-ray generator to determine when the exposure is due to spot filming. The computer logs the DAP from conventional fluoroscopy, ROI fluoroscopy and spot filming separately, applying the appropriate calibration factor for each. Measured DAPs, fluoroscopic DAP rates and exposure times are displayed in real-time. The system has been installed in a GI fluoroscopic room so that the dose-reduction potential of ROI imaging can be evaluated.


In this work a hierarchical scheme is proposed for the coordinated control of conventional synchronous generators, wind farm converters and flexible ac transmission systems. It comprises two levels, namely a fully decentralized set of controllers associated with the involved devices and a centralized coordinating controller based on synchronized wide-area signals provided by phasor measurement units. The proposed hierarchy of controllers is mainly focused on two objectives: transient frequency support and inter-area oscillations damping. Several works have recently proved that the fast-acting power converters of variable-speed generators can greatly improve the short-term frequency regulation capability in scenarios with a large penetration of wind energy. A case study is included showing that the dynamic performance and stability of power systems can indeed be enhanced when windmill converters are properly coordinated via a wide-area centralized controller.


Blend Uniformity and Vitamin Stability in Dairy-Based Foods Fortified with Lipid-Encapsulated Ferrous Sulfate Garth Anthony Lee Department of Nutrition, Dietetics, and Food Science, BYU Master of Science Homogeneity of powder blends is an important metric for industrial applications in fortified dairy foods including commercial pediatric nutrition products. Product development practices evaluating physical properties and nutrient stability performance are reliant on blending parameters that deliver a uniform powder at both the pilot and commercial scale. Quantities of individual micronutrients in finished products are particularly critical for formulated infant foods. The two preliminary phases of this study focused on developing a simple, efficient method, specifically for a pilot scale ribbon blender, in which maximum homogeneity in fortified dairy-based powder blends could be reached. In phase one, a red iron oxide pigment powder was mixed throughout a white dairy powder and color homogeneity was measured by comparing L*a*b* color values from powder samples extracted from different areas of the ribbon blender. For phase two, sixteen similar fortified dairy blends were produced with varying ribbon blade shaft rpm, fill level, and blending durations according to a response surface method (RSM). The level of homogeneity of ferrous sulfate in the dairy blend was measured in these fortified mixtures to determine optimal blender parameters. After operating parameters were determined for uniform blending, phase three was enacted using these parameters. A comparison study of nutrient stability in fortified model non-agglomerated powder infant formula (PIF) and agglomerated whey protein concentrate (WPC) powder blends was executed to evaluate the degradative effect of microencapsulated ferrous sulfate (MFS) vs. unencapsulated ferrous sulfate (UFS) in these fortified dairy blends. The nutrient degradation rates of vitamins A, E and C in both PIF and WPC base powder, fortified with either MFS or UFS, were determined and compared during an accelerated eight-week stability study. Using p = 0.05, no statistically significant differences in vitamin degradation rates were observed when comparing independent spray-dried dairy-based blends containing unencapsulated or microencapsulated ferrous sulfate (using an encapsulating composition of 60% stearic acid) during eight weeks of accelerated shelf-life storage conditions (37 °C with a 75% relative humidity, RH). Of note, the degradation rates of vitamins A and E in blends containing PIF and UFS were more rapid than the control and suggestively significantly different (p = 0.07).


Generative modeling is an approach to computer-assisted geometric modeling. The goal of the approach is to allow convenient and high-level specification of shapes, and provide tools for rendering and analysis of the specified shapes. Shapes include curves, surfaces, and solids in 3D space, as well as higher-dimensional entities such as surfaces deforming in time, and solids with a spatially varying mass density.
Shape specification in the approach involves combining low-dimensional entities, especially 2D curves, into higher-dimensional shapes. This combination is specified through a powerful shape description language which builds multidimensional parametric functions. The language is based on a set of primitive operators on parametric functions which include arithmetic operators, vector and matrix operators, integration and differentiation, constraint solution and global optimization. Although each primitive operator is fairly simple, high-level shapes and shape building operators can be defined using recursive combination of the primitive operators.
The approach encourages the modeler to build parameterized families of shapes rather than single instances. Shapes can be parameterized by scalar parameters (e.g., time or joint angle) or higher-dimensional parameters (e.g., a curve controlling how the scale of a cross section varies as it is translated). Such parameterized shapes allow easy modification of the design, since the modeler can interact with parameters that relate to high-level properties of the shape. In contrast, many geometric modeling systems use a much lower-level specification, such as through sets of many 3D control points.
Tools for rendering and analysis of generative models are developed using the concept of interval analysis. Each primitive operator on parametric functions has an inclusion function method, which produces an interval bound on the range of the function, given an interval bound on its domain. With these inclusion functions, robust algorithms exist for computing solutions to nonlinear systems of constraints and global minimization problems, when these problems are expressed in the modeling language. These algorithms, in turn, are developed into robust approximation techniques to compute intersections, CSG operations, and offset operations.


Electrical load forecasting is of great significance to guarantee the system stability under large disturbances, and optimize the distribution of energy resources in the smart grid. Traditional prediction models, which are mainly based on time series analyzing, have been unable to fully meet the actual needs of the power system, due to their non-negligible prediction errors. To improve the forecasting precision, we successfully transform the numerical prediction problem into an image processing task, and, based on that, utilize the state-of-the-art deep learning methods, which have been widely used in computer image area, to perform the electrical load forecasting. A novel deep learning based short-term forecasting (DLSF) method is proposed in the paper. Our method can perform accurate clustering on the input data using a deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model. And ultimately, another neural network with three hiddenlayers is used to predict the electric load, considering various external influencing factors, e.g. temperature, humidity, wind speed, etc. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed DLSF method performs well in both accuracy and efficiency.


A closed-form dispersion relation is found for shear surface acoustic waves (SAWs), namely, Bleustein-Gulyaev waves (BGWs), surface transverse waves (STWs), and leaky waves, propagating in periodic structures in the frequency range corresponding to the Bragg stopband. Changes in the spatial structure of the waves mutually reflecting on the grating as well as bulk wave scattering are considered. A comparison with numerically obtained dispersion curves for leaky waves on 36-LiTaO/sub 3/ shows good agreement.<<ETX>>


We provide a large deviation result for a random sum S Nxn=0 X n , whereN xis a renewal counting process and { X n } n=0are i.i.d. random variables, independent ofN x , with a common distribution that belongs to a class of square root insensitive distributions. Asymptotically, the tails of these distributions are heavier thane -vxand have zero relative decrease in intervals of length v x, hence square root insensitive. Using this result we derive the asymptotic characterization of the busy period distribution in the stable GI/G/1 queue with square root insensitive service times; this characterization further implies that the tail behavior of the busy period exhibits a functional change for distributions that are lighter thane -vx .


Human adenoviruses (HAdVs) represent a ubiquitous and clinically important pathogen without an effective antiviral treatment. HAdV infections typically cause mild symptoms; however, individuals such as children, those with underlying conditions, and those with compromised immune systems can develop severe disseminated disease. Our results demonstrate that ivermectin, an FDA-approved antiparasitic agent, is effective at inhibiting replication of several HAdV types in vitro. This is in agreement with the growing body of literature suggesting ivermectin has broad antiviral activity. This study expands our mechanistic knowledge of ivermectin by showing that ivermectin targets the ability of importin-α (Imp-α) to recognize nuclear localization sequences, without effecting the Imp-α/β1 interaction. These data also exemplify the applicability of targeting host factors upon which viruses rely as a viable antiviral strategy. ABSTRACT Human adenoviruses (HAdV) are ubiquitous within the human population and comprise a significant burden of respiratory illnesses worldwide. Pediatric and immunocompromised individuals are at particular risk for developing severe disease; however, no approved antiviral therapies specific to HAdV exist. Ivermectin is an FDA-approved broad-spectrum antiparasitic drug that also exhibits antiviral properties against a diverse range of viruses. Its proposed function is inhibiting the classical protein nuclear import pathway mediated by importin-α (Imp-α) and -β1 (Imp-β1). Many viruses, including HAdV, rely on this host pathway for transport of viral proteins across the nuclear envelope. In this study, we show that ivermectin inhibits HAdV-C5 early gene transcription, early and late protein expression, genome replication, and production of infectious viral progeny. Similarly, ivermectin inhibits genome replication of HAdV-B3, a clinically important pathogen responsible for numerous recent outbreaks. Mechanistically, we show that ivermectin disrupts binding of the viral E1A protein to Imp-α without affecting the interaction between Imp-α and Imp-β1. Our results further extend ivermectin's broad antiviral activity and provide a mechanistic underpinning for its mode of action as an inhibitor of cellular Imp-α/β1-mediated nuclear import. IMPORTANCE Human adenoviruses (HAdVs) represent a ubiquitous and clinically important pathogen without an effective antiviral treatment. HAdV infections typically cause mild symptoms; however, individuals such as children, those with underlying conditions, and those with compromised immune systems can develop severe disseminated disease. Our results demonstrate that ivermectin, an FDA-approved antiparasitic agent, is effective at inhibiting replication of several HAdV types in vitro. This is in agreement with the growing body of literature suggesting ivermectin has broad antiviral activity. This study expands our mechanistic knowledge of ivermectin by showing that ivermectin targets the ability of importin-α (Imp-α) to recognize nuclear localization sequences, without effecting the Imp-α/β1 interaction. These data also exemplify the applicability of targeting host factors upon which viruses rely as a viable antiviral strategy.


Process control is a difficult subject for students to grasp. Student difficulties include understanding how to apply what they are seeing in the classroom, how to connect it to other material they have learned, how to design a control system and how to understand the unsteady state nature of control problems. It can also be a difficult subject for faculty to teach particularly for them to include both analysis and synthesis, both transfer functions and equipment. Often separate laboratory sessions and simulation assignments are used to help students understand the application of what they are doing and to gain an appreciation for non-steady state operation. However these effective approaches do have limitations. The separation of the laboratory from other content delivery can limit its ability to help students integrate all aspects of process control. Laboratory setups are usually hard piped and do not allow students to experience putting the control system together. Simulations can be very effective for understanding the nature of process dynamics but lack an equipment dimension. In response to these issues modular kits for conducting process control experiments in either lab or classroom have been designed. A control course was developed that integrated the use of these experimental kits, simulations, problem solving exercises and instructor content delivery. In this setting any of the above modes of instruction can be used as appropriate to the progress of the course. Over the last several years the experiment kits have been developed, constructed, tested and refined. These kits require only a computer, a power outlet and a bucket of water (and sometimes some paper towels) in order to be used. They are modular kits using a LEGO® RCX brick as the interface to the computer, LEGO bricks for structural components, both Lego and custom sensors, and modular pipes and tanks where students can actually assemble the process and the controls system. These kits are capable of multiple experiments from simple dynamics of a sensor through cascade and multi-variable control. They can also be used for student projects. Multiple assessments have been used to evaluate and refine the modular kits and the multimodal approach of this class. These assessments include observations by different instructors, anonymous student surveys, student focus groups, and observed student problem solving sessions. Overall the kits and the integrated approach have had a positive effect on the class. Students and instructors have both enjoyed using the modular kits. Student groups of three to five have been used with students happier with the smaller groups. For the larger groups, students have suggested a planned rotation of formal roles to insure everyone in the group is involved. Students like the integration of kits and simulation into the classroom setting and have shown a particular preference for class sessions where a short activity is used to raise an issue and then followed up with detailed content on the issue. The modular kits have integrated easily with the other modes of instruction. P ge 12085.2


Initial research on moral injury has shown the construct to be associated with many negative mental health outcomes such as depression, suicidal ideation, reduced sense of belonging, anxiety, anger, and spiritual distress. In addition, moral injury among service members has also been shown to be related to experiences of interpersonal violence occurring pre-deployment. Given that social support has consistently been found to play a key role in moderating the relationship between experiences of interpersonal violence and stress and trauma related symptoms and disorders, this study will be the first to explore the relationship between experiences of interpersonal violence and moral injury, and the moderating role of social support. This study will examine secondary data collected from 935 U.S. military personnel primarily from the Army National Guard.


In a number of early articles reflecting on the normative issues raised by climate change, Henry Shue argues for, and elaborates on, a set of issues which follow from the general claim that the poorest globally should not be required to take a share of the costs of mitigation. This is prima facie a very intuitive claim, and elaborated in Shue's notoriously eloquent and impassioned style it has become a fixed point in the climate justice literature. It is the current status of his justification for this claim that I will focus on in this commentary. The world moves on, as Shue warns us, and we must be alive to the potential temporality of our theoretical commitments. Although this special edition rightly focuses one of his many conceptual contributions to the field of climate justice, Shue's own dedication to this process of critical reflection, so visible in his work, is cause for celebration in itself. More specifically, I will consider the extent to which Shue's influential distinction between subsistence and luxury emissions can help justify, in our changed circumstances, why the poor should be shielded from mitigation costs. We can describe this project as an attempt to establish 'poverty constraints' (Gardiner, 2017: 445) on climate change policy. To be clear from the outset, we need not see this constraint as determining the ambition of our overall account of climate justice; rather, it can be viewed as expressing the minimum requirement that must be satisfied. Interestingly, this issue has generated some recent debate in the literature (Gardiner, 2017; Moellendorf, 2014), and so it is timely to have here Shue's reflections on the subject and on the article that has had such a hold on the debate. The backdrop to debates about climate change burden sharing, the fluid context that Shue wants us to keep in view when articulating our principles, is unfortunately not one


Ostreid herpesvirus type 1 (OsHV-1) has become a problematic infective agent for the Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas. In particular, the OsHV-1 μVar subtype has been associated with severe mortality episodes in oyster spat and juvenile oysters in France and other regions of the world. Factors enhancing the infectivity of the virus and its interactions with susceptible and resistant bivalve hosts are still to be understood, and only few studies have explored the expression of oyster or viral genes during productive infections. In this work, we have performed a dual RNA sequencing analysis on an oyster sample with a high viral load. High sequence coverage allowed us to thoroughly explore the OsHV-1 transcriptome and identify the activated molecular pathways in C. gigas. The identification of several highly induced and defence-related oyster transcripts supports the crucial role played by the innate immune system against the virus and opportunistic microbes possibly contributing to subsequent spat mortality.


Exoskeletons are used in rehabilitation, military, industrial applications and rescuing, heavy-weight lifting and civil defense applications as well. This paper presents to design of a lower-extremity exoskeleton assisting walking of a load carrying human. Proposed exoskeleton system is designed to be appropriate mechanism with human lower extremity and it operates synchronously with the human realizes. The aim of exoskeleton actuator system is to provide forces against to external load carried by user during walking, sitting, and standing motions. Thus, it supports human walking and significant portion of external load carrying by the user. Also it makes possible to user spend less energy, less stress and fatigue. Proposed work involves the following design steps: kinematic synthesis of the exoskeleton, mechanical and electro-hydraulic system design.


On the basis of analyzing the geometric characteristics of the helical groove, the interfer -ometry method for its processing is discussed. This paper establishes a mathematical model of the helical groove, using differential geometry theory and numerical analysis. This research analyzes the impact of machine adjustment parameters (i.e. setting angle) on the geometry specification (i.e. Rake angle) of the helical groove. The simulation examples are done by CAD (Computer Aided Design), and the reasonable adjustment of machine parameters will be obtained by computer simulation and statistical analysis. This will reduce the time for design, the number of trial samples, and production costs. This study provides a precise 3D helical cutter model which can be used in areas such as finite element analysis (FEA) and virtual cutting tests.


Castle Garth is the name of the fortified area once enclosed within the castle walls. In the fifteenth century Newcastle became a county in its own right, however, the Garth, being within the castle walls, remained part of the County of Northumberland. The Great Hall, a building separate from the Castle Fortress (the "Keep"), which in later years became known as the "Old Moot Hall", was used by courts that sat at regular intervals in every county of England and Wales. The Fortress then became a prison for the County and was used as such until the early nineteenth century. Beginning in the fifteenth century, unlicensed traders, taking advantage of the fact that the city authorities had no jurisdiction over the Garth area, settled there with their commercial activities. From the time of Charles II (1630-1685), the area then became famous for its tailors and shoemakers, who grew particularly abundantly on the path known as "Castle Stairs". In 1619 the fortified complex was rented by James I to the courtier Alexander Stephenson, who allowed the civilian houses to be built inside the castle walls. After the civil war, new houses were added until, towards the end of the eighteenth century, Castle Garth had become a distinct and densely populated community, with a theater, public houses and lodgings. The main urban transformations were started in the early nineteenth century with the construction of the new Moot Hall called County Court. From 1847 to 1849 the fortified enclosure was partially compromised by further intersections with the infrastructure for the construction of the railway viaduct, thus interrupting direct access from the Castle guarding the Black Gate. Despite the development of the contemporary city has affected the preservation of the ancient fortified palimpsest, a strong consolidated link is still maintained by the sedimentation of values of material and immaterial culture. The proposed contribution intends to present this process of integration between fortified structure and city highlighting today the state of the art, the conservation, restoration and enhancement initiatives undertaken in the last forty years.


The most computationally demanding block in the digital front-end of a software defined radio (SDR) receiver is the channelizer which operates at the highest sampling rate. Channelizers are employed in the SDR receivers for extracting individual channels (frequency bands) from the digitized wideband input signal. Reconfigurability and low complexity are the two key requirements in an SDR channelizer. A new reconfigurable filter bank (FB) architecture based on frequency response masking (FRM) for SDR channelizers is proposed. The proposed FB offers reconfigurability at the architectural level and at the channel filter level and is capable of extracting channels of nonuniform bandwidths corresponding to multiple wireless communication standards from the digitized wideband input signal. Design examples show that the proposed FB offers multiplier complexity reduction of 84% over the conventional per-channel (PC) approach, which is best suitable for the extraction of channels of nonuniform bandwidth. The proposed FB has been synthesized on 0.18 μm complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology and compared with the PC approach. Synthesis results show that the proposed FB offers area reduction of 85%, power reduction of 48.5%, and improvement in speed of 56.7% over the PC approach. The proposed FB has been implemented on Xilinx Virtex 2v3000ff1152-4 FPGA and tested using real-time inputs from a vector signal generator.


: Efficacy of various antibiotics: amikacin, rifampicin, rifabutin, ciprofloxacin, temafloxacin, erythromycin and clarithromycin was evaluated against pigmented and unpigmented variants of Mycobacterium avium complex isolated from patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. The minimal inhibitory concentrations of antibiotics against unpigmented variants were multiplied by 2 to 16 compared to those of pigmented variants. Observations with intracellularly growing bacteria showed that unpigmented variants were more resistant to antibiotics than variants with a difference of approximately 0.25 a 0.3 log 10 in decrease of viable or bacterial counts. The combinations of temafloxacin or ciprofloxacin with rifabutin and amikacin were most effective against unpigmented variants.


This essay unpacks the normative potential of the right to development in addressing contemporary disparities of the international political economy. Among the significant elements provided for in the UN Declaration on the Right to Development (1986) is its 'responsibilities approach': rather than establishing a new substantive right its provisions advance a system of international duties that might give better effect to existing socio-economic rights. It challenges the classical reading of international human rights law that assigns merely secondary responsibility to developed states in fulfilling human rights elsewhere, in its place affirming a principle of complementary or shared human rights responsibility with developing states. While the Declaration articulates some unconventional demands for a human rights instrument the ways in which it frames the nature and scope of human rights duties is fitting under current conditions of economic globalisation. It is concerned with structural disadvantage that engenders the poverty afflicting half the global population today, and is preoccupied not with a state's duties to its own nationals, but with its duties to people in far off places. As is argued herein, this legal cosmopolitanism is critical to the realisation of human rights in the 21st century.


A communication structure for a binary n-cube is proposed, which consists of hierarchically ordered virtual networks corresponding to the cube. It is shown that the structure is deadlock-free and can support adaptive and fault-tolerant routing strategies. The software as well as the hardware support required for implementing wormhole routing are discussed. The applicability of the method for networks like k-ary n-cubes is also considered.<<ETX>>


Hearts depleted of extracellular calcium become susceptible to injury caused by repletion of extracellular calcium (calcium paradox). It has been suggested that calcium-free perfusion causes weakening of intercalated disks and that the physical stress of contracture may cause sarcolemmal membrane rupture and creatine kinase (CK) release. To further investigate this hypothesis, the effects of caffeine on contracture, cellular morphology, and CK release were studied in control and calcium-free perfused isolated rat hearts. Control hearts perfused with 2.5 mM calcium retained normal ultrastructure for long periods of perfusion. Calcium-free hearts perfused for 12 minutes developed separations of fascia adherens portions of intercalated disks but retained intact nexus junctions. Hearts subjected to 5-minute calcium-free perfusion, followed by calcium repletion, developed a massive CK release and extensive contraction band necrosis (calcium paradox). Ten millimolar caffeine, which causes rapid calcium release from sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR), produced contracture, but not CK release, from control hearts perfused with medium containing 2.5 mM calcium. In calcium-free perfused hearts, caffeine caused sudden CK release accompanied by contracture, development of contraction bands, wide separations of cells at intercalated disks, and sarcolemmal membrane injury. Caffeine-induced injury occurred despite 3 mM amobarbital inhibition of mitochondrial respiration. Hearts perfused with caffeine in the presence of calcium relaxed when made calcium-free and did not release CK. Addition of caffeine following calcium-free perfusion at 22 C, which protects the heart from the calcium paradox, produced a rapid, transient contracture. These results are compatible with the hypothesis that myocardial cell injury in calcium-free hearts is not dependent on repletion of extracellular calcium or mitochondrial function, but can result from contracture following caffeine-induced release of intracellular calcium from the SR.


Handwriting is a behavioural biometric that an individual learns and develops over time and automated writer identification systems can be developed by identifying these behavioural aspects of an individual's writing style. These writer recognition systems greatly assist forensic experts by facilitating them with semi-automated tools that segment the text, narrow down the search, help with visualization and finally assist in the final identification of an unknown handwritten sample.

Handwriting, as a behavioural characteristic, has been a subject of interest for researchers for many decades and intensive research performed in this field has resulted in the development of multiple methods and algorithms. However, automated writer identification is still a challenging problem. Difficulties in segmenting text and the deviation of an individual from his or her unique writing style is the reason for ongoing research in this field.

This thesis aims to investigate the problems faced in automated writer identification and propose novel techniques of segmentation and classification that would contribute to the field of writer identification. This has led to four different contributions.

First a novel segmentation algorithm is proposed for segmenting sub-words within hand written Arabic words, the proposed method outperforms the previously used projection profile method. The second proposed method offers a segmentation free multi-scale Local Ternary Pattern Histogram for text independent writer identification. Local ternary patterns are applied at various scales to produce a predictor model for its respective scale while the high dimensionality problem of a multi-scale approach has been tackled with dimensionality reduction using SR-KDA. The third contribution tackles the problem of writer identification in noisy conditions. A robust offline text independent writer identification system is proposed using Bagged Discrete Cosine Transforms. The proposed system effectively utilizes discrete cosine transform for writer identification while avoiding problems of high dimensionality and memory limitations. Finally, in the fourth contribution a dissimilarity Gaussian mixture model is proposed for describing the contrast between different writers of a dataset. Furthermore, a weighted histogram approach is also proposed that penalizes bad prediction scores with a cost function to significantly enhance the identification rate.


SoC design will require asynchronous techniques as the large parameter variations across the chip will make it impossible to control delays in clock networks and other global signals efficiently. Initially, SoCs will be globally asynchronous and locally synchronous (GALS). But the complexity of the numerous asynchronous/synchronous interfaces required in a GALS will eventually lead to entirely asynchronous solutions. This paper introduces the main design principles, methods, and building blocks for asynchronous VLSI systems, with an em- phasis on communication and synchronization. Asynchronous circuits with the only delay assumption of isochronic forks are called quasi-delay-insensitive (QDI). QDI is used in the paper as the basis for asynchronous logic. The paper discusses asyn- chronous handshake protocols for communication and the notion of validity/neutrality tests, and completion tree. Basic building blocks for sequencing, storage, function evaluation, and buses are described, and two alternative methods for the implementation of an arbitrary computation are explained. Issues of arbitration, and synchronization play an important role in complex distributed systems and especially in GALS. The two main asynchronous/synchronous interfaces needed in GALSVone based on synchronizer, the other on stoppable clockVare described and analyzed.


The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) [1] defines a number of standards, both for data models and for online services, that has been widely adopted in the Geographical Information System (GIS) community. This has lead to a number of software development efforts, online data archives, and application communities. The emergence of Web Service technique overcomes the shortcoming of traditional Distributed Object technique and provides the interoperable capability of cross-platform and cross-language in distributed net environment. GIS services will be implemented more extensively by using Web Service approach. A spatial data infrastructure lets many GIS vendors share data stores and applications in a distributed environment. GIS basically involves the integration of data and services from multiple sources from different vendors. The Web services architecture establishes a standard interconnection rules between services and information clients that nicely support the dynamic integration of data, which is the key to creating a spatial data infrastructure. By introducing Web Services, distributed GIS services from different vendors can be dynamically integrated into the GIS applications using the interoperable standard communication protocols of the Web Services. To be able to benefit from the Web Services in the GIS applications, all the service providers should provide their services as Web Services. General acceptance from the vendors increases the interoperability and enhances the GIS applications. We find that the OGC standards are very compatible with Web Services standards, although they are not technically implemented this way. To be able to benefit from Web Services technologies we have built a common architecture to convert any OGC GIS services to Web Services and applied this to our current WMS project.


This study seeks to investigate the trends of Intellectual Capital Disclosures (ICD) by Malaysian companies before and after the issuance of the Practice Statement on Management Commentary in December 2010. The voluntary disclosures of 30 listed companies were reviewed and a total of 120 annual reports were examined from year 2009 to 2012. The study employed a content analysis method with a checklist of 24 IC attributes, of which, 9 are from internal capital, 9 from external capital and 6 from humancapital. This study employs a scoring scale from '1' to '5'to distinguish the level of ICD. In addition, this study also analyzed the relationship between ICD and firm characteristics, namely company size, leverage, profitability and growth. The theories underpinning the conceptual framework are agency theory, stakeholder theory and signaling theory. The study used inferential statistics to examine the relationship between firm characteristics and ICD. The findings showed there are significant increasing trends of ICD after the issuance of Management Commentary in 2010. The study also found that none of the firm characteristics were associated to the disclosure of IC. Among the three IC components, external capital was the most disclosed as compared to internal and human capital. This study would be interesting to give insight to the standard setters on the readiness of Malaysian companies in reporting their IC.


This paper considers a cognitive communication network, which consists of a flying base station deployed by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to serve its multiple downlink ground terminals (GTs), and multiple underlaid device-to-device (D2D) users. To support the GTs' throughput while guaranteeing the quality-of-service for the D2D users, the paper proposes the joint design of D2D assignment, bandwidth, and power allocation. This design task poses a computationally challenging mixed-binary optimization problem, for which a new computational method for its solution is developed. Multiple binary (discrete) constraints for the D2D assignment are equivalently expressed by continuous constraints to leverage systematic processes of continuous optimization. As a result, this problem of mixed-binary optimization is reformulated by an exactly penalized continuous optimization problem, for which an alternating descent algorithm is proposed. Each round of the algorithm invokes two simple convex optimization problems of low computational complexity. The theoretical convergence of the algorithm can be easily proved and the provided numerical results demonstrate its rapid convergence to an optimal solution. Such a cognitive network is even more desirable as it outperforms a non-cognitive network, which uses a partial bandwidth for D2D users only.


The article addresses the wave of federal legislative reform since the mid-1990s aimed at reducing forum shopping by plaintiffs in securities class actions. In particular, the article examines the direct conflict between section 22(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 (1933 Act), which prohibits defendants from removing 1933 Act cases from state court to federal court, and the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA), which permits removal of high-dollar class actions involving diverse parties. The article shows how this statutory conflict has produced a recent split between the Seventh and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals. In July 2008, the Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court's remand order and held that the 1933 Act's bar on removal trumps CAFA. In contrast, in January 2009, the Seventh Circuit rejected the reasoning of the Ninth Circuit and held that CAFA's removal provisions supersede the 1933 Act. The article critiques these decisions, as well as several district court and appellate opinions from the Second Circuit that support the Seventh Circuit's viewpoint. The article examines the underlying policy considerations, and sets forth steps Congress and the courts may take to clarify federal jurisdiction in the midst of an upsurge in securities class actions stemming from the mortgage-backed securities crisis.


An analytical model for real-time estimation of travel times along signalized arterials was developed. The application of the model on two arterial sites and comparisons of the estimated travel times with simulated and field data show that the model accurately predicts travel times on the selected sites. In this article, we present several important extensions and refinements to the model including treatment of long queues and queue spillovers, and algorithms for signal priority to transit vehicles. We also describe the integration of the model into an archival data management system for continuous measurement and monitoring of traffic performance along arterials.


The Special Handling Unit (SHU) is a prison facility
that provides increased supervision and restrictions for inmates
who cannot be appropriately managed at a maximum-security
institution. SHU confinement differs from other types of
segregation (e.g., administrative) in criteria for admission and
severity of restrictions. The first purpose of this study was to
identify the distinguishing characteristics of SHU inmates in
comparison to administrative segregation inmates from a large
sample of Canadian federal inmates (N = 3666). The second purpose
was to identify common problems experienced by SHU inmates (N =
32), and determine the presence of subtypes of inmates for whom
unique programming may be warranted. Results indicated violent
behaviours, among other characteristics, to be particularly
relevant for SHU inmates. However, distinct SHU subtypes were not
identified. The author concluded that differential programming may
not be necessary, and expressed the need for prospective research
regarding the efficacy of the SHU.


The discourse of laymen and professionals reveals the dependence of cognition on the interaction between participants, and the limitations of studying expertise by examining isolated individual behavior. This paper examines distributed cognition in the management of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). By varying the level of patient experience with the management of MS, we demonstrate the dependence of physician cognition on the patient's contribution in four doctor-patient interactions. Experienced patients actively constructed clinical representations and presented initial evaluations for the doctor to refine and validate. Conversations between newly diagnosed patients and doctors demonstrated the physician work to establish a common understanding of the problem and acceptable interventions. Our analysis focuses on the complementary participant roles, and challenges the notion that medical cognition equals physician cognition.


We investigate the importance of lensing magnification for estimates of galaxy clustering and its cross-correlation with shear for the photometric sample of Euclid. Using updated specifications, we study the impact of lensing magnification on the constraints and the shift in the estimation of the best fitting cosmological parameters that we expect if this effect is neglected. We follow the prescriptions of the official Euclid Fisher matrix forecast for the photometric galaxy clustering analysis and the combination of photometric clustering and cosmic shear. The slope of the luminosity function (local count slope), which regulates the amplitude of the lensing magnification, and the galaxy bias have been estimated from the Euclid Flagship simulation.We find that magnification significantly affects both the best-fit estimation of cosmological parameters and the constraints in the galaxy clustering analysis of the photometric sample. In particular, including magnification in the analysis reduces the 1$\sigma$ errors on $\Omega_{\text{m},0}, w_{0}, w_a$ at the level of 20-35%, depending on how well we will be able to independently measure the local count slope. In addition, we find that neglecting magnification in the clustering analysis leads to shifts of up to 1.6$\sigma$ in the best-fit parameters. In the joint analysis of galaxy clustering, cosmic shear, and galaxy-galaxy lensing, magnification does not improve precision, but it leads to an up to 6$\sigma$ bias if neglected. Therefore, for all models considered in this work, magnification has to be included in the analysis of galaxy clustering and its cross-correlation with the shear signal ($3\times2$pt analysis) for an accurate parameter estimation.


OBJECT
The subarachnoid space around the optic nerve in the orbit can be visualized using T2-weighted MR imaging with the fat-saturation pulse sequence. The optic nerve sheath (ONS) diameter can be estimated by measuring the outer diameter of the subarachnoid space. Dilated ONS is associated with idiopathic intracranial hypertension and hydrocephalus, and is believed to reflect increased intracranial pressure (ICP). The relationship between dilated ONS and ICP is unclear because of the difficulty in obtaining noninvasive measurements of ICP. The authors investigated the relationship between subdural pressure measured at the time of surgery and ONS diameter measured on MR images in patients with chronic subdural fluid collection.

METHODS
Twelve patients underwent bur-hole craniostomy with continuous drainage for chronic subdural hematoma or hygroma in 2006. Orbital thin-slice fat-saturated MR images were obtained before and after surgery, and the ONS diameters were measured just behind the optic globe. Subdural pressure was measured using a manometer before opening of the dura mater.

RESULTS
A significant correlation was found between the ONS diameter and the subdural pressure (correlation coefficient 0.879, p = 0.0036). The ONS diameter before surgery (6.1 +/- 0.7 mm) was significantly reduced after surgery (4.8 +/- 0.9 mm, p = 0.003; measurements are expressed as the mean +/- standard deviation).

CONCLUSIONS
Increased ONS diameter measured on coronal orbital thin-slice fat-saturated T2-weighted MR images is a strong indicator of increased ICP, and helps to differentiate between passive subdural fluid collection due to brain atrophy and subdural hygroma with increased ICP.


The effect of lowering cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) Na concentration on renal Na excretion (UNaV) was investigated in conscious sheep undergoing mineralocorticoid escape induced by intravenous infusion of aldosterone (20 micrograms.ml-1.h-1) for 3 days. On the 3rd day of aldosterone administration, when plasma and CSF Na concentration and mean arterial blood pressure (MABP) were increased as a result of the mineralocorticoid treatment, a reduction in the CSF Na concentration was induced by infusing a Na-free solution of 300 mmol/l mannitol (1 ml/h) into a lateral cerebral ventricle. This caused significant reductions in UNaV and MABP and a significant increase in renal free water clearance (CH2O). There was no significant change in glomerular filtration rate or plasma atrial natriuretic peptide concentration, but renal lithium clearance decreased. Simultaneous intravenous infusion of vasopressin (0.03 microgram/h) and lowering of CSF Na concentration also caused significant reductions in UNaV and MABP, but CH2O did not increase. We propose that increased Na concentration of brain fluid may initiate natriuretic and pressor mechanisms contributing to the process of mineralocorticoid escape. Reduced UNaV may have been due to reduced MABP, but it is unlikely to have been due to reduced plasma vasopressin levels.


AbstractIn this paper, algorithms to describe mesoscale and microscale kinematics of granular flow using image analysis are described. At the mesoscale, digital image correlation (DIC) is employed to derive displacement fields, from which rigid body rotation and strains are calculated using continuum mechanics descriptions of kinematics. Moreover, Lagrangian and Eulerian trajectories are obtained from DIC analysis. At the microscale, individual particle kinematics is resolved using particle identification and tracking algorithms. Microscale analysis of kinematics is then performed using definitions of affine and nonaffine local motion. In order to demonstrate the application of the algorithms an experimental setup of pile penetration in a plane strain calibration chamber is presented. Mesoscale and microscale analysis is performed on high-resolution images acquired from incremental jacking of the pile. It is shown through analysis of captured images that the developed tools can be effectively employed in ...


Title Entanglement and Sources of Magnetic Anisotropy in Radical Pair-Based Avian Magnetoreceptors Publication Type Journal Article Year of Publication 2012 Authors Hogben, HJ [2], Biskup, T [3], Hore, PJ [4] Journal Physical Review Letters Volume 109 Issue 22 Date Published Jan-11-2012 ISSN 0031-9007 DOI 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.220501 [5] Short Title Phys. Rev. Lett. Citation Key 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.220501


ABSTRACT As a further investigation of the sediments of the central Texas coast bays, heavy minerals in the sand-size fraction of the sediment samples were studied. The application of statistical analysis to heavy mineral studies by using chi-square to test for homogeneity of samples is shown. It was possible to divide the bays into areas where the relative amounts of heavy minerals were statistically homogeneous, and in the case of a bay with simple bottom configuration and sediment type it was possible to correlate the grain size distribution of the sediments with relative amounts of heavy minerals. This relationship, however, did not hold for a more complex bay. The accuracy of the laboratory procedures was investigated. The mineralogical differences between the various areas are probably r al and not due to errors in laboratory methods. The heavy mineral distribution also showed that ranch of the sand-size sediment was carried into the bays from the barrier islands.


Fine-grid computations are reported of turbulent flow through a square sectioned U-bend corresponding to that for which Chang et al. (1983a) have provided detailed experimental data. A sequence of modeling refinements is introduced: the replacement of wall functions by a fine mesh across the sublayer; the abandonment of the PSL approximation (in which pressure variations across the near-wall sublayer are neglected); and the introduction of an algebraic second-moment (ASM) closure in place of the usual k-e eddy-viscosity model. Each refinement is shown to lead to an appreciable improvement in the agreement between measurement and computation. Direct comparisons with the measured rms turbulent velocity give further support to the view that the ASM scheme achieves a generally satisfactory description of the Reynolds stress field. Even with the most refined model some discrepancies between the experiment and computed development are apparent. It is suggested that their removal may require the use of a turbulent transport model in the semi-viscous sublayer in place of the van Driest (1956) mixing-length treatment used at present.


Augmented reality (AR)-based surgical navigation may offer new possibilities for safe and accurate surgical execution of complex osteotomies. In this study we investigated the feasibility of navigating the periacetabular osteotomy of Ganz (PAO), known as one of the most complex orthopedic interventions, on two cadaveric pelves under realistic operating room conditions. Preoperative planning was conducted on computed tomography (CT)-reconstructed 3D models using an in-house developed software, which allowed creating cutting plane objects for planning of the osteotomies and reorientation of the acetabular fragment. An AR application was developed comprising point-based registration, motion compensation and guidance for osteotomies as well as fragment reorientation. Navigation accuracy was evaluated on CT-reconstructed 3D models, resulting in an error of 10.8 mm for osteotomy starting points and 5.4° for osteotomy directions. The reorientation errors were 6.7°, 7.0° and 0.9° for the x-, y- and z-axis, respectively. Average postoperative error of LCE angle was 4.5°. Our study demonstrated that the AR-based execution of complex osteotomies is feasible. Fragment realignment navigation needs further improvement, although it is more accurate than the state of the art in PAO surgery.


Much of the work on the problems of socio-economic history (including urban issues) of Volhynia in the middle and second half of the XVI century are based on state tax documents. Since the Lublin Union, there are very few such sources. Besides, they did not cover a significant number of estates and settlements. A higher level of regularity of taxation and greater control resulted in better preservation of the so-called taxation registers. For Volyn, this can only be said about the two-decade period after the Lublin Union. The chronological representativeness of this group of sources cannot be considered satisfactory. This applies to the least used and practically not represented by researchers and archaeographers in circulation in the entirety of the primary registers. Much taxes registers touches latifundia of Volyn. The complex of such sources requires the implementation of their source characteristics as a separate variety (including specific historical issues) and in comparison with the already used tax documentation, mostly generalized by administrative-territorial units. State fiscal documentation consisted of several levels of sources. The first consideration of state revenue cases for the incorporated territories was already included in the resolution of the Lublin Sejm in 1569, where it occupied almost the largest volume compared to other issues and was also issued as a separate Taxation Universal. Thus, for the first time, the Ukrainian lands included into Poland received a well-developed basis for taxation. When collecting a tax, the owners or their administration created special lists – primary tax registers. All surviving primary tax registers date back to the first decade after the Lublin Union. Primary tax registers for 1576 – 1577 survived only for a few Volyn estates. Much of them touches possessions of prince V.-K. Ostroz'ryy. These are Dubno, Ostroh, Starokostyantyniv and others. One of them is register of Stepan volost 1576. The primary tax documentation contains a personal record of the population with an indication of the tax grounds for each person. In some cases (for households) they contain evidence of the gender structure and professional classes of the population. Thus, for demographic research, such sources have a number of advantages. The text of the Stepan primary reister is presented in the appendix.


We have carried out the largest (>3.5 x 10(5) Mpc(3), 26 deg(2)) H alpha narrow-band survey to date at z similar to 0.2 in the SA22, W2 and XMMLSS extragalactic fields. Our survey covers a large enough volume to overcome cosmic variance and to sample bright and rare Ha emitters up to an observed luminosity of similar to 10(42.4) erg s (1), equivalent to similar to 11M(circle dot) yr(-1). Using our sample of 220 sources brighter than > 10(41.4) erg s (1) (> 1M(circle dot) yr(-1)), we derive Ha luminosity functions, which are well described by a Schechter function with phi(star) = 10 (2.85 +/- 0.03) Mpc (3) and L-H alpha* = 10(41.71 +/- 0.02) erg s (1) (with a fixed faint end slope alpha = -1.35). We find that surveys probing smaller volumes (similar to 3 x 10(4) Mpc(3)) are heavily affected by cosmic variance, which can lead to errors of over 100 per cent in the characteristic density and luminosity of the Ha luminosity function. We derive a star formation rate density of rho(SFRD) = 0.0094 +/- 0.0008M(circle dot) yr(-1), in agreement with the redshift-dependent H alpha parametrization from Sobral et al. The two-point correlation function is described by a single power law omega(theta) = (0.159 +/- 0.012)theta(( 0.75 +/- 0.05)), corresponding to a clustering length of r(0) = 3.3 +/- 0.8Mpc h(-1). We find that the most luminous Ha emitters at z similar to 0.2 are more strongly clustered than the relatively fainter ones. The L-H alpha* H alpha emitters at z similar to 0.2 in our sample reside in similar to 1012.5-13.5M(circle dot) dark matter haloes. This implies that the most star-forming galaxies always reside in relatively massive haloes or group-like environments and that the typical host halo mass of star-forming galaxies is independent of redshift if scaled by L-H alpha/L-H alpha* (z), as proposed by Sobral et al.


This report is the third in a series with the two previous reports published in 2006 and 2008. This report details major conservation initiatives that have occurred in Australia since the last report, in which data was current to 2006, and highlights emerging issues. A major enhancement on previous reports is the inclusion of ecosystem and threatened species gap analyses, and the reporting on Australia's protected area systems on both land and sea. We define a minimum standard for an adequate, representative, and comprehensive reserve system by sampling ecosystem and species level diversity. Using the latest protected area and national species and ecosystem spatial data, we quantify the gaps: those areas needing to move from the current reserve system to one which meets the minimum standard. We also use data provided by various parks agencies, from responses to a questionnaire or as published by the agencies, to detail financial investments in protected areas, and estimate the investment levels needed to fill the documented gaps. We also identify critical policy changes needed to more effectively fill the identified gaps.


Sustainable product design has become the tendency of the product design because the degradation of the environment. However, there are no effective methodologies or framework designers and developer eager to. This paper base on the soft system methodology present a methodology which is effective to the idea generation phases in sustainable product design process. From the need identification to the idea generation, sustainable product design criteria and relationship between it and customer requirements, 39 engineering parameters, 40 inventive principles were use in the methodology. An example is illustrated to show the process of this work flow, and the result show the effectiveness of the methodology.


Full-time students undertaking a MBA experience a number of transitions, most notably from work to study and study to work. Consideration of effective transition strategies may offer insight into improving course structure, design and delivery. This paper explores these transitions using Bridges (2009) three stages of organizational transition as a structure. Initial findings suggest that the Bridges model is a useful approach for understanding the role the MBA plays within the student transition. The period of study can be broadly considered the neutral zone within Bridges model. Course design can be engineered to support the transitions by aligning curricular and co-curricular activity to student career development. Transition design should be incorporated early within the course structure to allow the student space to develop their work identity. For the MBA at the Robert Gordon University making transition activity explicit can help set a context for the ˜four pillar framework and offer a different perspective on course improvement.


—As the population in many countries is steadily aging, allowing elderly people to stay longer at home is a growing concern. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) proposes new techniques to help people remain autonomous, based on ambient intelligence. We present an ontology-based framework in which ontologies enable the expression of users' preferences in order to personalize the system behavior. They are also used for the discovery and interconnection of devices, the storage and retrieval of collected data and the transmission of actions. This way, the behavior of the system may be expressed using high-level logic rules. Another important contribution is the addition of a diagnosis service that monitors the run-time behavior of the AAL system only by using sensors discovered opportunistically at run-time and knowledge about physical laws, not pre-defined control loops. Finally, this paper describes an actual implementation, with precise technological details, in order to prove the feasibility of the technical choices, and provide implementation ideas for future projects.


Endocytosis of oxidized low density lipoproteins (oxLDL) by macrophages, mediated by scavenger receptors, is thought to play a central role in foam cell formation and, thus, in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. OxLDL activates several MAP kinases, including the ERK, JNK and p38 MAP kinases, but the role of these activations in oxLDL uptake has not been studied. In the present investigation, we find that SB203580, a specific inhibitor of p38, blocks oxLDL‐exposed J774 cells from becoming foam cells. Inhibition of foam cell formation by blockade of the p38 pathway is, at least in part, due to inhibition of oxLDL‐induced up‐regulation of the scavenger receptor CD36. Using pharmaceutical inhibitors and dominant active MAP kinase kinases, we demonstrated that activation of the p38 pathway, but not the ERK or JNK pathways, is necessary and sufficient to transactivate PPARγ, a nuclear receptor that has recently been shown to play a pivotal role in oxLDL‐induced CD36 expression. Our results for the first time demonstrate a regulation of CD36 by p38, and the importance of the p38 pathway in regulation of foam cell formation.


Objective
We screened endophytic bacteria containing ACC (1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate) deaminase from soybean nodules, and evaluated salt-alkaline resistance, phylogenetic status and the growthpromoting of representative strain.

Methods
The features of strains producing ACC deaminase were determined by using the ACC as a sole nitrogen source, adopting standard curve method, colorimetric method, solid medium screening method, bacterial morphology, physio-biochemical characteristics, similarity analysis of 16S rRNA gene, inoculation tests.

Results
Eight endophytic bacteria containing ACC deaminase were screened from soybean nodules collected from 36 points of 13 cities (regions)in Henan province. Enzymaticactivity of DD132 was the highest (15.712 U/mg). Screened strain tolerated to medium of 4%-6% NaCl concentration. Among of them, DD165 and DD132 could tolerate 9% NaCl concentration. Five bacteria growing well under pH 11, showing that these strains had stronger alkali resistance. Eight strains containing ACC deaminase activity were affiliated to four genera: Bacillus, Enterobacter, Stenotrophomonas and Pantoea. Inoculation test showed that DD132 had a significant growthpromoting effect on wheat seedlings.

Conclusions
Endophytic bacteria containing high ACC deaminase activity from soybean nodules have stronger salt-alkaline resistance. DD132 has obvious growth-promoting effect on wheat seedlings.


Prior to the democratic dispensation in South Africa in 1994, women were not actively involved in the economic activities of both household and the country. These patriarchal customs have resulted in the limited influence of women in various sectors of the economy. These customs appears to more prevalent in the poverty stricken rural areas where women do have limited rights and privileges to challenge and own businesses as compared to the male individuals. On the other hand, the customized feedlot model provides an effective tool for mainstreaming the communal livestock farmers. This can be attributed to the net monetary value of the direct benefits from using the model. The customized feedlot model is capable of making communal livestock farmers to adapt to changing consumer taste and preference as far as beef is concerned. The aim of the study was to find out whether or not gender differences accounted for different economic outcomes in women and men beneficiaries in the customized feedlot model developed and supported by South African government and its partners. The Participatory Action Research method (involving a sample of 80 communal farmers) was used to collect the data. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected. These data sets were analyzed using SPSS software and focus sessions. A univariate analysis of variance was conducted. The results revealed that women derive more (R5 395.6 ± 514.88) profit in communal feedlots relative to (R3730.59 ± 1491.97) the male counterpart. The gender variable was found to be statistically significant (F= 6.098, 0.016, p<0.05). The difference in profit in these businesses attributed by gender was found to be 7.3%. The model used represented 6.1% of the outcome. Levene's test was violated due to its significant difference at 95% confident interval. In addition, women appear to participate less in this type of farming due traditional practices of livestock ownership in these rural areas. The study seems to suggest that participation of women in farming activities attracts more profit than the counterparts. Therefore, an effort to increase the women participation may be beneficial to women empowerment in poor rural areas of South Africa.


Distributed defense of DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack has been extensively researched in recent years and control-based defense is a hopeful way. However, existed methods only deal with bandwidth protection. The paper takes defense of DDoS flood as a kind of Processing and Bandwidth Resources allocation and solves it using control theory. Our defense mechanism FFDRF (Feedback Filtering with Dual-Resource Fairness) sets up filters in edge routers of AS and adjusts the filtering thresholds through feedback between these routers and the victim. The simulation results show that FFDRF can make the legitimate traffic keep high survival rate while is stable and converges quickly even in case of heterogeneous flow sources and link conditions. Compared with level-k max-min fairness defense, FFDRF is more effective against CPU-consuming flood. And an implementation of FFDRF in a linux router indicates that FFDRF is feasible in real-life routers.


Objectives: Patients presenting with intracranial lesions represent a diagnostic dilemma. Imaging and laboratory tests lack the specificity needed for decision-making. We aimed to detect what intervention and findings made the study patients eligible for brain biopsy, for observation or for treatment. Methods: From January 2010 to December 2012, electronic medical records of 312 adult patients were selected from the hospital database using key words aimed to identify brain lesions, in two-affiliated tertiary-care, county-based hospitals in Houston, Texas.Decision to biopsy, to observe or to treat brain lesions was the main outcome variable. Clinical, laboratory and imaging information were correlated with the main variable to determine which factors made the need for biopsy more likely. Results:Forty biopsied patients and 272 non-biopsied patients were included. Motor deficit, confusion or coma, single brain lesion, larger than 3 cm, with midline shift and complete ring enhancement made brain biopsy more likely, whereas bilateral brain or cerebellar lesion, presence of subcortical lesions with homogeneous enhancement, and history of cancer with potential for brain metastases made the biopsy less likely. Laboratory tests evaluated were inadequate surrogates of brain histology, whereas abnormalities on chest X ray or CT of the chest, abdomen or pelvis made the probability of brain biopsy lower. The above predictors for biopsy were not present among our HIV positive patients. Conclusions: The path from lesion finding to the decision to observe, to treat or to biopsy was heterogeneous. Prospective validation and generalization to other institutions are needed to strengthen our observations.


The iterative nature of ecomorphological diversification is observed in various groups of animals. However, studies explicitly testing the consistency of morphological variation across and within species are scarce. Antarctic notothenioids represent a textbook example of adaptive radiation in marine fishes. Within Nototheniidae, the endemic Antarctic genus Trematomus consists of 15 extant species, some with documented large intraspecific variability. Here, we quantify head shape disparity in 11 species of Trematomus by landmark-based geometric morphometrics, and we illustrate repeated events of divergence and convergence of their head morphology. Taking advantage of the polymorphism observed in some species of Trematomus, we also show that two closely related species or clades (e.g., Trematomus bernacchii and T. hansoni) are characterised by the same level of morphological disparity as observed at the level of the entire genus. Interestingly, the same main axes of shape variation are shared between and within species, indicating repeated morphological diversification. Overall, we illustrate a similarity of intra- and interspecific patterns of phenotypic diversity providing new insights into the mechanisms that underlie the diversification of Antarctic fishes.


Sarver, Joshua L. MS, Purdue University, December 2015. Understanding University Student Perceptions of Organizations Using Facebook Pages. Major Professor: Mihaela Vorvoreanu. This study examines how the interface elements of organizational Facebook pages affect student perceptions of core organization-public relationship dimensions. Organizations are increasingly using Facebook as a platform for building and maintaining relationships with their publics. University students are a major user group on Facebook, which makes understanding their experiences on the platform vital. This study provides a review of the relevant literature regarding social media, organization-public relationship building and management, and user experience in order to build a case for the necessity of this study. 15 students were interviewed while visiting an organization's Facebook page using an adapted form of a research protocol called website experience analysis. The results of the study explain the ways in which university students experience Facebook pages and the interface elements that influence perception of trust, commitment, involvement, openness, and dialogue. This research examined the flexibility and utility of the website experience analysis protocol for studying experiences


An operational definition of the clinical syndrome of specific reading disability is proposed. Its clinical symptomatology is described, with emphasis on the invariably present emotional concomitants. A scheme for differential diagnosis is outlined. Theories of etiology and the evidence on which they rest are briefly reviewed. The basis for a treatment plan is provided. Throughout, emphasis is placed on the role of the pediatrician, both as a key figure in early diagnosis and prompt treatment, and as community leader in the development of adequate educational resources for the non-reader. There is even reason to believe that methods for the early detection and rehabilitation of children with reading disorders may make a significant contribution to the problem of juvenile delinquency. The high rate of reading disability among delinquents suggests that at least some of the poor motivation for academic achievement among these children, and their reactive antisocial behavior, may have one source in the repeated experience of frustration and failure that accompanies their reading difficulty.


Matthew Desmond's Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City is a triumphant work that provides the missing socio-legal data needed to prove why America should recognize housing as a human right. This Essay argues that Desmond's mostly federal legal prescriptions are insufficient to help all Americans realize the full promise of the human right to housing. American cities should also enact local ordinances that legitimate new housing arrangements in order to fully realize the human right to housing. Part I argues that Evicted's stories show that the law operates differently in poor housing markets than in traditional markets, and that poor residents are differently situated in low-income housing markets based upon their age, sex, gender, race, and ethnicity. Evicted also reveals that poor tenants and their landlords make informal bargains that often undermine the goals of numerous housing-related laws and sacrifice poor residents' dignity. Part II builds on Desmond's legal and policy prescriptions by providing examples of how cities can codify the right to housing at the local level through resolutions and ordinances that legitimate more equitable housing arrangements. Part II further asserts that the right to housing is a legal tool that can help localities manage and effectively internalize the mounting economic and social costs of increasing inequality in American housing markets.


Shock wave focusing by an ellipsoidal reflector can produce higher pressure in the focal region. The focusing process of shock wave was studied by theory analyses and numerical results. Base on the experimental observation the shock wave source is equivalent to the explosion of an underwater explosive. A finite element model was set up to investigate the shock wave focusing behaviors. Both the pressure-time history and the peak pressure along the axial position were presented. The shock wave focusing process was shown. The interactions of waves in the focal region are shown. A modified EOS of water was applied, which can be used to analyze the negative pressure observed; the numerical results based on the modified EOS agree well with the experimental data.


In vitro shoot regeneration was carried out for Kinnow mandarin (Citrus reticulata Blanco) through shoot tip explants obtained from in vitro germinated seedling. The medium supplemented with 2.5 mg/L benzylaminopurine (BAP) supported maximum shoot proliferation (2.45 shoots/explant). This rate was further enhanced (7.23 shoots/explant) by adding 25 mg/L glutamine, 50 mg/L adenine sulphate and 100 mg/L casein hydrolysate. From the in vitro proliferated shoots, the shoot apices and nodes were excised and sub-cultured on four different medium namely: SCM-1, SCM-2, SCM-3 and SCM-4 for six consecutive months. Problems like defoliation, chlorosis and loss of vigour in shoots were observed at different stages of subculture. These problems were successfully controlled by SCM-4 having 1.5 mg/L of BAP, 0.5% charcoal, 25 mg/L glutamine, 50 mg/L adenine sulphate and 100 mg/L casein hydrolysate. The SCM-4 also maintained the high proliferation rate throughout the subculturing process. Rooting was best induced on 2 mg/L indole-butyric acid (IBA) in combination with 0.1 mg/L indole-3-acetic acid (IAA). Rooting was significantly enhanced by 100 mg/L casein hydrolysate. The in vitro raised plantlets were acclimatized under culture room conditions in different potting mixture, of which the combination of garden soil, sand and vermiculite mixture in 1:1:2 ratio was found most supportive. After 30 days of acclimatization, plantlets were transferred to soil, where established plants showed more than 90% survival.


It's 1920s Harlem, and man, the joint is jumpin'. Folks are coming and going and everything's copacetic as long as the gin keeps flowing. This is the scene Stephen Jorgenson dives into when he arrives from Canada for the first time. He is taken to "The Niggerati Manor, " an apartment building in Harlem inhabited by aspiring artists whose true talents lie in living, and where everything's black and white - with a lot of grayness in between. Counterbalancing Stephen's embrace of these folks is Raymond Taylor, a writer who is the only truly talented artist in the manor. Raymond's cynical take on the "new Negro artist" is the tightrope he walks between the love and hatred of himself and his people. Characters representing Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Alain Locke all appear, and part of the fun of this book is figuring out who's who.


The thin-client model is considered a good fit for online gaming. As modern games normally require tremendous computing and rendering power at the game client, deploying games with such models can transfer the burden of hardware upgrades from players to game operators. As a result, there are a variety of solutions proposed for thin-client gaming today. However, little is known about the performance of such thin-client systems in different scenarios, and there is no systematic means yet to conduct such analysis. In this paper, we propose a methodology for quantifying the performance of thin-clients on gaming, even for thin-clients which are close-sourced. Taking a classic game, Ms. Pac-Man, and three popular thin-clients, LogMeIn, TeamViewer, and UltraVNC, as examples, we perform a demonstration study and determine that 1) display frame rate and frame distortion are both critical to gaming; and 2) different thin-client implementations may have very different levels of robustness against network impairments. Generally, LogMeIn performs best when network conditions are reasonably good, while TeamViewer and UltraVNC are the better choices under certain network conditions.


Many root-colonizing microbes are multifaceted in traits that improve plant health. Although isolates designated as biological control agents directly reduce pathogen growth, many exert additional beneficial features that parallel changes induced in animal and other hosts by health-promoting microbes termed probiotics. Both animal and plant probiotics cause direct antagonism of pathogens and induce systemic immunity in the host to pathogens and other stresses. They also alter host development and improve host nutrition. The probiotic root-colonizing pseudomonads are generalists in terms of plant hosts, soil habitats and the array of stress responses that are ameliorated in the plant. This article illustrates how the probiotic pseudomonads, nurtured by the carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) sources released by the plant in root exudates, form protective biofilms on the root surface and produce the metabolites or enzymes to boost plant health. The findings reveal the multifunctional nature of many of the microbial metabolites in the plant-probiotic interplay. The beneficial effects of probiotics on plant function can contribute to sustainable yield and quality in agricultural production.


Following the introduction of print portfolios for teacher development in the ELT sector in Malta, this article discusses the findings of a small-scale study that highlighted teachers' views in relation to the possible future implementation of e-portfolios. It shows that while aware of the benefits of this tool, teachers have concerns about their own digital literacy and the threats to privacy posed by an e-portfolio's accessibility. The article underscores the idea that teachers need to have ownership of their professional development, by being able to decide for themselves whether they want to switch from the print to the electronic version of the portfolio.


A comparison was made of the phosphate content of the tight-junction-specific protein ZO-1 in two strains of Madin-Darby canine kidney cells which differ in transepithelial resistance, a parameter reflective of tight-junctional permeability. Analysis revealed that the ZO-1 from the low-resistance strain contained approximately twice as much phosphate as that from the high-resistance strain.


Abstract

Amorphous Selenium (a-Se) was first commercialized for use as a photoconductor in xerography during the middle of the twentieth century. Since then the hole transport properties of a-Se have been studied extensively, however the study of electron transport remains relatively limited. Flat panel digital X-ray detectors using a-Se as a photoconductor have been developed and are being used in mammographic screening. The charge transport properties of the photoconductor layer will in part determine the performance of the flat panel detector. X-ray absorption causes electron-hole pair generation in the bulk of the photoconductor, requiring both electrons and holes to drift across the sample and be collected. If these carriers are lost in the many localized trapping states as they cross the sample, they will not contribute to the image signal resulting in unnecessary radiation exposure to the patient.

Eleven a-Se samples were deposited at the University of Saskatchewan varying in thickness from 13 μm to 501 μm. Pure a-Se was chosen to ensure uniformity across the thickness of the samples, that is, to ensure the composition of the film did not change across the thickness. Time of flight transient photoconductivity experiments (TOF) and interrupted field time of flight (IFTOF) measurements were performed to measure the electron drift mobility and lifetime respectively. The product of electron drift mobility μ and lifetime τ, hence the carrier range (μτ) at a given applied electric field. The electron range is an important parameter as this places limits on the practical thickness of the photoconducting layer in a detector. This study also includes an investigation into the effect of the definition of transit time on the calculated drift mobility and analysis of the dispersive transport properties of a-Se.

It was observed that as sample thickness (L) increased, electron drift mobility (μ) decreased. In addition electron lifetime (τ) decreased dramatically in samples thinner than 50 μm. Electron range (μτ) was 2.26 × 〖10〗^(-6) cm^2/V in the 147μm sample and 5.46 × 〖10〗^(-8) cm^2/V in the 13 μm sample, a difference of almost two orders of magnitude. The comparison of the half current method and inflection point methods to calculate the transit time of the same TOF curve, shows that the calculated mobility can vary by as much as 24%. This illustrates clearly that it is important to use the same point on the TOF curve to define the transit time. Charge packet dispersion (spread) in the time domain in pure a-Se samples was proportional to L^m where L is the photoconductor thickness and m ~ 1.3, measured at both 1 V/μm and 4 V/μm.


Biodynamic agriculture is an organic farming system that utilizes fermented herbal and mineral preparations as compost additives and field sprays. This study was conducted to determine whether biodynamic preparations affect lentil and wheat growth and yield, soil fertility, or weed populations in the short run. Each of four nutrient treatments, biodynamically prepared compost, non-biodynamic compost, mineral NPK fertilizer, and no fertilizer, were tested with and without biodynamic field sprays. Crop yield, crop quality, and soil fertility were similar in plots treated with mineral NPK fertilizers, biodynamic compost, or non-biodynamic compost. Use of compost raised soil pH from 6,0 without compost to 6.5 with compost. Compost application reduced the broadleaf weed population by 29% and reduced the grass weed population by 78%. Biodynamic sprays altered soil and grain N chemistry, but the effects are of unknown biological significance. Use of the biodynamic field sprays correlated with higher yield of lentil per unit plant biomass, lower grain C and crude protein contents, greater NO 3 - content in soft white spring wheat, and greater NH 4 + content in soil. In general, soils and crops treated with biodynamic preparations showed few differences from those not treated. Application of composts with or without the preparations produced similar crop yields with lower weed pressure, compared with equal nutrients supplied by mineral fertilizer, but any additional short-term benefits from biodynamic preparations remain questionable.