Colossal magnetoresistance is a rare phenomenon in which the electronic resistivity of a material can be decreased by orders of magnitude upon application of a magnetic field. Such an effect could be the basis of the next generation of memory devices. Here we report CMR in the antiferromagnetic oxypnictide NdMnAsO(1-x)F(x) as a result of competition between an antiferromagnetic insulating phase and a paramagnetic semiconductor upon application of a magnetic field. Mn(2+) oxypnictides are relatively unexplored, and tailored synthesis of novel compounds could result in an array of materials for further investigation and optimization.


Trichloroethene (TCE) degradation by Fe(II)-activated sodium percarbonate (SPC) in the presence of citric acid (CA) in aqueous solution was investigated. The results indicated that the presence of CA enhanced TCE degradation significantly by promoting HO• generation. The presence of Cl−, HCO3− and the initial solution pH appeared to be not negligible on the effect of TCE oxidation, while humic acid has no influence on TCE degradation. The generation of HO• and O2−• in the SPC/Fe(II)/CA system were confirmed with chemical probes, and the radical scavenging tests showed that TCE degradation was due to the direct oxidation by HO•. Acidic pH condition was favorable for TCE degradation. In summary, this study provided detailed information for the application of CA-enhanced Fe(II)-activated SPC technique for TCE contaminated groundwater remediation.


The ocean-coupled Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting (HWRF) system was used to investigate the evolution of Supertyphoons Mangkhut and Yutu (2018) over the Philippines Sea and near landfall in the northern Philippines. The simulation results indicate that Mangkhut at a deepening stage has a smaller track sensitivity to the use of different physics schemes but greater intensity sensitivity, which becomes reversed for Yutu at a weakening stage. When both upstream tracks are well simulated with some specific suite of physics schemes, sensitivity experiments indicate that both track deviations near the northern Philippines are only weakly modified by the air–sea interaction (ocean-coupled or uncoupled processes), the topographic effects of the Philippines terrain (retained or not), and the initial ocean temperature change along both typhoon tracks. The interactions between the internal typhoon vortex and the large-scale flow play an important role in the overall movement of both typhoons, which were explored for their structural and convective evolutions near the terrain. The wavenumber-one potential vorticity (PV) tendency budget of the typhoon vortex was analyzed to explain the induced typhoon translation from different physical processes. The west-northwestward translation for the stronger Mangkhut near the northern Philippines is primarily induced by both horizontal and vertical PV advection but with the latter further enhanced to dominate the northward deflection when closing in to the terrain. However, the northwestward translation and track deflection near landfall for the weaker Yutu are driven by the dominant horizontal PV advection. Differential diabatic heating is relatively less important for affecting the movement of both typhoons near landfall.


In September 1969, almost exactly 110 years after the publication of The Origin of Species,
another biologist and enthusiastic Darwinian, Alister Hardy, founded the Religious
Experience Research Unit in Manchester College, Oxford. Hardy's vision was of a new kind of
natural theology that would grow out of the scientific investigation of the spiritual experience
of the human species. Towards the end of his first series of Gifford Lectures delivered
at the University of Aberdeen in 1964, he had stated:
Those who are concerned lest our civilization will change its nature under the influence of a
materialistic philosophy might, I believe, do well to consider how they might encourage further
research into the nature of human personality, in the hope of finding more about the nature of
God. The great institutes for scientific research having a bearing on man's bodily comfort –
upon medical problems direct and indirect, agriculture and fisheries, food, transport and so on
– are dotted about the country, and are as symbolic of the present age as our glorious
cathedrals and parish churches are symbolic of our spiritual past. If only one per cent of the
money spent on the physical and biological sciences could be spent ... it might not be long
before a new age of faith dawned upon the world. It would, I believe, be a faith in a spiritual
reality to match that of the middle ages; one based not upon a belief in a miraculous
interference with the course of nature, but upon a greatly widened scientific outlook. What
might mankind not do if he used the tools of modern science with the faith and inspiration of
the cathedral builders? Can the scientific method help to re-establish such a faith?
This vision of Hardy's was heavily overlaid, if not entirely obscured, for almost all of his
professional career as one of the world's leading marine biologists. Indeed, the Alister Hardy
Society is not the only organisation that currently bears his name. SAHFOS, the Sir Alister
Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science, has its headquarters in Plymouth, a staff of 20 and an
annual operating budget last year of two-thirds of a million pounds. It monitors the nearsurface
plankton on a network of routes covering the whole of the North Atlantic and North
Sea on a monthly basis, using the Continuous Plankton Recorder which Hardy invented more
than 60 years ago. In this essay I want to turn away from that highly salient aspect of
Alister's originality to explore the origins and nature of the creative vision that grew out of
his central preoccupation – the relation between biology and religion.


Lignin, a major non-carbohydrate polymer in lignocellulosic plant biomass, restricts the action of hydrolytic enzymes in the enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocellulosic feedstocks. Non-productive enzyme adsorption onto lignin is a major inhibitory mechanism, which results in decreased hydrolysis rates and yields and difficulties in enzyme recycling. The mechanisms of non-productive binding are poorly understood; therefore, in this thesis, enzyme-lignin interactions were studied using isolated lignins from steam pretreated and non-treated spruce and wheat straw as well as monocomponent cellulases with different modular structures and temperature stabilities. The origin of the isolated lignin had an undisputable effect on non-productive binding. Ultrathin lignin films, prepared from steam pretreated and non-treated lignin preparations, were employed in QCM adsorption studies in which Trichoderma reesei Cel7A (TrCel7A) was found to bind more onto lignin isolated from steam pretreated biomass than onto lignin isolated from non-treated lignocellulosic biomass. Botanical differences in lignin chemistry had only a minor effect on nonproductive binding when enzyme binding to non-treated wheat straw and spruce lignin was compared. Increase in temperature was found to increase the inhibitory effect arising from non-productive enzyme binding to lignin. Different enzymes were shown to have a characteristic temperature at which the inhibition emerged. Thermostable enzymes were the most lignin-tolerant at high temperatures, suggesting that in addition to the surface properties of an enzyme, non-productive binding onto lignin may be influenced by stability of the enzyme structure. In addition, for lignin-bound T. reesei cellulases, increase in temperature resulted in loss of catalytic activity and tighter binding, suggesting that at high temperature enzyme binding to lignin was probably coupled to conformational changes in the protein folding. With TrCel7A, carbohydrate-binding module (CBM) was found to increase nonproductive adsorption to lignin. The Talaromyces emersonii Cel7A catalytic module was linked to a CBM from TrCel7A, giving rise to a fusion enzyme TeCel7A-CBM1. Despite a similar CBM, TeCel7A-CBM adsorbed significantly less to lignin than TrCel7A, indicating that the catalytic module (TeCel7A) had a strong contribution to the low binding. Probably, the contribution of CBM or catalytic core module in non-productive binding varies between different enzymes, and the role of the CBM is not always dominant.


In most organizations, the accounting system is the primary source of "observables," such as payoffs, actions, etc. This paper explores the effects of one aspect of accounting systems, namely the method of valuation of assets and liabilities, on the structure of incentives. It is found that the employee's allocation of effort will be different under historical cost valuation than under current valuation methods, but that under some conditions, the owner's payoff is not necessarily higher under the current value system, even if such a system is no more expensive than a historical cost system.


In this article, we evaluate computational models of natural language with respect to the universal statistical behaviors of natural language. Statistical mechanical analyses have revealed that natural language text is characterized by scaling properties, which quantify the global structure in the vocabulary population and the long memory of a text. We study whether five scaling properties (given by Zipf's law, Heaps' law, Ebeling's method, Taylor's law, and long-range correlation analysis) can serve for evaluation of computational models. Specifically, we test n-gram language models, a probabilistic context-free grammar, language models based on Simon/Pitman-Yor processes, neural language models, and generative adversarial networks for text generation. Our analysis reveals that language models based on recurrent neural networks with a gating mechanism (i.e., long short-term memory; a gated recurrent unit; and quasi-recurrent neural networks) are the only computational models that can reproduce the long memory behavior of natural language. Furthermore, through comparison with recently proposed model-based evaluation methods, we find that the exponent of Taylor's law is a good indicator of model quality.


Cultural studies, which were the new paradigm in social sciences, put culture into whole new dimension. Not only as the creation of human lives and behaviours, but also seek a deeper understanding between culture and the power within it. The purpose of cultural studies are to discover powers and ideologies that shape the human everyday lives. Everything that seemingly and perfectly normal like fashion, advertising or even the culture of dining out, are shaped by discourse of ideologies. Some pivotal methods used in cultural studies are encoding/decoding and the mythology (semiotics) of Roland Barthes. In media studies, cultural studies uncovered the hidden truths and agenda in media practices, such as advertising, which usually construct and represent the hegemonic views of societies.


In this riveting work of narrative nonfiction, journalist Graham Bowley re-creates one of the most dramatic tales of death and survival in mountaineering history, vividly taking readers through the tragic 2008 K2 ascent that claimed the lives of eleven climbers, severely injured two others, and made headlines around the world. With its near-perfect pyramid shape, the 28,251-foot K2--the world's second-highest mountain, some 800 feet shorter than the legendary Everest hundreds of miles to the south--has lured serious climbers for decades. In 2008, near the end of a brief climbing season cut even shorter by bad weather, no fewer than ten international teams--some experienced, others less prepared--crowded the mountain's dangerous slopes with their Sherpas and porters, waiting to ascend. Finally, on August 1, they were able to set off. But hindered by poor judgment, lack of equipment, and overcrowded conditions, the last group did not summit until nearly 8 p.m., hours later than planned. Then disaster struck when a huge ice chunk from above the Bottleneck, a deadly 300-foot avalanche-prone gulley just below the summit, came loose and destroyed the fixed guide ropes. More than a dozen climbers and porters still above the Bottleneck--many without oxygen and some with no headlamps--faced the near impossibility of descending in the blackness with no guideline and no protection. Over the course of the chaotic night, some would miraculously make it back. Others would not. Based on in-depth interviews with surviving climbers and many Sherpas, porters, and family and friends of the deceased, "No Way Down" reveals for the first time the full dimensions of this harrowing drama.


This paper deals with the effect of temperature on plastic buckling strength of cylindrical pipe of some magnesium alloys subjected to shot peening process. Workpieces are three cylindrical pipes of AZ31, AZ61 and AZ80 magnesium alloys. The shape of pipe is 30mm in height, 16mm and 14mm in outer and inner diameters. The shot peening treatment was given on the surface of cylindrical pipe using an air-type peening machine. Plastic buckling strength test was performed under axial compression in a case of both ends with fixed condition, at several temperatures between 293K and 573K and at a crosshead speed of 1 mm/min using an Instron-type testing machine. From the experimental result, buckling stresses for all kinds of AZ31, AZ61 and AZ80 alloy pipe were strengthened after the shot peening treatment, but a few of differences for the increasing ratio. The buckling stress of the shot-peened pipe was kept higher than that of as received one up to the test temperature of 473K, however it tended to be around equal at 573K.


Between January 1, 2022 and July 4, 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) received 6,027 reports of laboratory-confirmed patients of monkeypox, predominantly men, that had occurred during a multi-country outbreak of the virus. During this period, 21 women and six children were reportedly infected with the monkeypox virus. Although the infected number of women and children was small, these data are worrisome, because young children and pregnant women are at increased risk of severe outcomes from monkeypox. One infant already has been hospitalized in intensive care in London, England. The WHO data regarding the 2022 monkeypox outbreak also indicate that 25 healthcare workers have been diagnosed with monkeypox, although it is still being investigated whether their infection was due to occupational exposure. Three deaths from monkeypox have been reported to WHO during this monkeypox outbreak. A special focus of this presentation is on the monkeypox infection involving women and children.


The thin wobble motors that are required to hold rating shafts employ an electropermanent magnet. This turns the holding force on and off by applying a momentary electrical pulse. To design the magnet devices without the need for finite element analyses, a theoretical force model is necessary for predicting the attractive force. In this paper, first, a force model is derived by estimating the permeance around the air gap. A magnetic circuit is constructed, employing a relatively simple method to build the model in clouding leakage flux. Thus, the basic structure and driving principle are also presented. Next, an analytical force model is constructed on the basis of distribution parameter analysis between the stator and the rotating shaft. The design of the electromagnet core and the control method are presented. Finally, a prototype model of the motor that is 30 mm in diameter and 7 mm in thick is fabricated. The two models are verified by comparing the results of FEM with the results of the experiments. They can properly predict the attractive force, so the thin wobble motor with holding force can be applied in portable electric equipment.


This paper tries to contribute to the clarification of the problems concerning professional
justifications from an ideal-typical point of view, which inevitably implies that it doesn't
deal with real problems and their solutions. The starting point is Freidsons (2001) idealtypical
distinction between professionalism, market and bureaucracy. Abbotts (1988)
analysis of professionalism will be used to convert Freidsons distinction of power into a
distinction of expertise. By making use of Savornin Lohman & Raaff (2001) the
distinction is extended by two more logics, the public and the private one. It will be
shown that all five logics rest on different action values and that these differing values
can cause serious misunderstandings concerning professional justifications.


Compression therapy and treating venous insufficiency is the standard of care for venous leg ulcers. The need for debridement on healing venous leg ulcers is still debated. Dressings are often used under compression bandages to promote faster healing and prevent adherence of the bandage to the ulcer. A wide range of dressings is available, including modern dressings with different kinds of biological activity. Microbial burden is believed to underlie delayed healing, but the exact role of microbiofilm in wound healing is uncertain. Before choosing a specific wound dressing, four main functions should be considered: (1) cleaning, (2) absorbing, (3) regulating or (4) the necessity of adding medication. There is no clear evidence to support the use of one dressing over another, as demonstrated by many Cochrane review studies. In addition, the prescriber should enquire about contact allergies that may also develop during wound treatment. It is shown that early intervention and early investment may reduce the cost of treatment. The choice of wound dressings should be guided by cost, ease of application and patient and physician preference and be part of the complete strategy. The role of the medical specialist is evident. Wound dressings matter as part of the optimal treatment in VLU patients.


Abstract—The aim of this paper was to study the sorption properties of a blast furnace sludge used as the sorbent. The sorbent was utilized for reduction of content of lead and zinc ions. Sorbent utilized in this work was obtained from metallurgical industry from process of wet gas treatment in iron production. The blast furnace sludge was characterized by X-Ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and XRFS spectroscopy. Sorption experiments were conducted in batch mode. The sorption of metal ions in the sludge was determined by correlation of adsorption isotherm models. The adsorption of lead and zinc ions was best fitted with Langmuir adsorption isotherms. The adsorption capacity of lead and zinc ions was 53.8 mg.g-1 and 10.7 mg.g-1, respectively. The results indicated that blast furnace sludge could be effectively used as secondary material and could be also employed as a low-cost alternative for the removal of heavy metals ions from wastewater.


A valid and reliable method was established to separate six compounds from pigeon pea leaves via elution-extrusion counter-current chromatography. A solvent system composed of n-hexane/methanol/formic acid aqueous solution with pH = 3 (10:6:4, v/v) was screened to achieve satisfactory isolation from the ethanol extract of pigeon pea leaves. Four compounds, 9.2 mg of compound 1 (96.8%), 3.2 mg of 2 (88.0%), 6.2 mg of 4 (94.2%) and 25.2 mg of 5 (94.2%), were obtained by conventional elution from 100 mg of the precipitation fraction, respectively. Two compounds, 14.4 mg of 3 (96.3%) and 28.1 mg of 6 (96.6%), with high K values were obtained by the subsequent extrusion procedure. The compounds 1-6 were identified as 3-methoxy-5-(2-phenylethenyl)-phenol, pinostrobin chalcone, pinostrobin, 2-hydroxy-4-methoxy-6-(2-phenylvinyl)-benzoic acid, longistylin C and cajaninstilbene acid by quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry, and 1 H and 13 C NMR spectroscopy. The in vitro antiproliferation activities of compounds 1, 5 and 6 against human hepatoma cell were evaluated and the half-maximum inhibitory concentrations were acquired.


Abstract The German cockroach, Blattella germanica (L.), is a common pest found in apartment buildings. Prevalence of cockroach infestations is affected by both environmental conditions and building occupant behavior, but their relationships are not well studied. The objective of this study was to analyze the presence of German cockroaches in relation to environmental conditions, resident demographics, and residents' tolerance of cockroaches. We conducted resident interviews, placed sticky traps to detect the presence of German cockroaches, and assessed apartment conditions. A total of 388 apartments from seven low-income apartment buildings, occupied by senior citizens in New Jersey, United States, were included. Among the 344 apartments where trap count data were obtained, 30% had German cockroaches. Among interviewed residents whose apartments had existing cockroach infestations, 36% were unaware of the presence of cockroaches. The odds of having cockroaches in apartments with a 'poor' sanitation rating in kitchens and bathrooms was 2.7 times greater than that in apartments with better sanitation conditions. Residents' tolerance to cockroaches is significantly associated with presence of cockroaches and cockroach population size. The median cockroach count when residents were bothered by cockroaches was ≥3, based on deployment of 4 sticky traps per apartment, over a 2-wk period. Assessing and reducing cockroach tolerance thresholds and improving housekeeping through resident education and assistance from community and housing management should be incorporated in future cockroach management programs in order to reduce high cockroach infestation rates found in similar communities.


A simple and sensitive visible spectrophotometric method has been developed for the quantitative estimation of amlodipine in bulk drug and pharmaceutical dosage forms (tablets). Amlodipine exhibited absorption maximum at 410 nm in bromocresol purple 0.05%. 2.4 buffer solution and obeyed Beer's law in concentration range 4-20 μg/mL. The result of analysis in this method has been validated statistically and by recovery studies. This method is extended for the analysis of drug and in pharmaceutical formulation.


Having survived the 2008 global economic crisis with its reputation largely unscathed, the Islamic banking (IB) governance model has attracted much attention of late and many conventional banks are now offering Shariah compliant products. Essentially, IB corporate governance model is distinct from that of conventional banks. Here, the Shariah Supervisory board (SSB) is one aspect of the corporate governance model distinctiveness in IB. The SSB of such institutions plays an invaluable role to protect the interests of various stakeholders by scrutinizing and ensuring that all IB products and practices are Shariah complaint. However, given the immense complexity of the tasks entrusted to the SSB, it becomes imperative that SSB members possess the necessary combinations of knowledge, skills, abilities and experiences to undertake such responsibilities in an effective manner. Despite its importance, empirical scrutiny of this issue is sparse. Based on the online disclosures and annual reports of 137 IBs around the world, this paper adopts a content analysis methodology to explore and evaluate the characteristics of SSB members. Findings suggest that SSB-related disclosures are generally poor and tend to vary from one country to another. Additionally, we analyze the extent of cross-board memberships. Interestingly, many SSB members sit on multiple boards. This not only point to a shortage in supply of appointable SSB members but also raise corporate governance questions related to independence, confidentiality and objectivity of these boards. Overall, the paper highlights major areas of corporate governance improvement and explains the IB corporate governance model using the legitimacy theory.


The large multiple-caldera volcanic system of Askja, central Iceland, is composed principally of subglacial basaltic hyaloclastite-pillow-lava formations and postglacial basaltic scoria and flows. Traditionally, such calderas are believed to be formed by downfaulting and ring-fracture collapse. Whereas this certainly applies to the smaller A.D. 1875 caldera, the older main caldera may have developed positive relief during subglacial construction of laterally confined hyaloclastite ridges above erupting fractures. This is supported by the evidence of a large negative gravity anomaly that reaches minima over the marginal low-density ridges but which is less negative within the caldera, where relatively dense postglacial lavas are believed to cover a more limited hyaloclastite succession beneath the caldera floor.


Digital investigators have an increasing need to examine data network logs and traffic, either as part of criminal or civil investigations or when responding to information security incidents. To truly understand the contents of the logs and the data packets, examiners need to have a good foundation in the protocols comprising the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite. This paper introduces the use of protocol analyzers and packet sniffers for TCP/IP traffic, and provides examples of normal and suspect TCP/IP traffic. This paper also provides a basis for a discussion of intrusion detection and signature analysis.


Cancer survival continues to improve in high-income countries, partly explained by advances in screening and treatment. Previous studies have mainly examined the relationship between individual dietary components and cancer prognosis in tumours with good therapeutic response (breast, colon and prostate cancers). The aim of this review is to assess qualitatively (and quantitatively where appropriate) the associations of dietary patterns and cancer prognosis from published prospective cohort studies, as well as the effect of diet interventions by means of randomised controlled trials (RCT). A systematic search was conducted in PubMed, and a total of 35 prospective cohort studies and 14 RCT published between 2011 and 2021 were selected. Better overall diet quality was associated with improved survival among breast and colorectal cancer survivors; adherence to the Mediterranean diet was associated to lower risk of mortality in colorectal and prostate cancer survivors. A meta-analysis using a random-effects model showed that higher versus lower diet quality was associated with a 23% reduction in overall mortality in breast cancer survivors. There was evidence that dietary interventions, generally combined with physical activity, improved overall quality of life, though most studies were in breast cancer survivors. Further cohort and intervention studies in other cancers are needed to make more specific recommendations.


Introduction: The upright bipedal stance constitutes a major challenge to our balance control system, however in our day to day life we are unaware of the complexity of the task and it is only following injury or due to the aging process that one realizes how vulnerable we become and how much easier it can be to lose balance and fall. The effects of two manual manipulations of the ankle and foot on quiet stance in young (23.5 ± 3.5 yrs) and elderly females (65.2 ± 4.4 yrs) were examined. These manipulations consisted of a contract-relax proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation stretching and of an articulation technique. Despite being widely used by manual therapists these techniques have not been researched in relation to postural control and therefore their potential use in balance rehabilitation is unknown.

Methods: Using kinetic and kinematic analysis, the following sway variables were acquired: centre of pressure (CoP) and centre of gravity (CoG) sway area, amplitude, power and frequency. Cross correlation analysis was conducted on CoP and CoG signals. Stabilogram-diffusion analysis (Collins and De Luca 1993) was also performed on CoP displacements. Pre- and post-manipulation passive and active ankle range of movement were recorded as well as standing ankle angular velocity. EMG activity was recorded bilaterally from the tibialis anterior and the lateral gastrocnemius muscles.

Results: The two manual manipulations applied to the ankle and foot had distinct somatosensory and mechanical effects on postural control. Following PNF somatosensory information was altered in such a way that under EC conditions a decrease in balance control was found in both young and elderly. In the young population this decrease was revealed through a less tightly regulated closed loop feedback system whereas in the elderly a reduction in the dynamic safety margin between CoP and CoG displacements was observed. Conversely the effects of articulation on somatosensation did not decrease the postural balance control of either groups but led to a greater dynamic safety margin in the young group under EO conditions indicating an increased balance control. An enhanced mechanical function of the ankle and foot allowing the descending motor control to operate more efficiently was only observed in the young group following PNF. However following articulation this increased open loop balance control was found in both young and elderly.

Discussion and Conclusions: PNF applied to the ankle dorsi and plantarflexors led to a decrease in balance control in both young and elderly. Conversely articulation technique to the ankle and foot produced an improved balance control also in both groups. From this positive result it is hoped that the use of articulation technique may be integrated into rehabilitation and/or fall-prevention programmes related to balance stability. However as participants were only tested immediately after the manual manipulations, the duration of the observed effects is not known. This would require further investigation so that the frequency of use of such techniques can be appropriately planned by health professionals.


ABSTRACT In today's mass-mediated society the plethora of available media content has become a ubiquitous pool of potential knowledge that is sourced in the absence of first-person experience about particular issues, events, individual people and communities. The resulting dispositions that lead to corresponding attitudes and behaviour in the real world are shared by spectators, as well as filmmakers. Hence, the way subjects are represented in media reflects these dispositions and provides an indicator for the current socio-cultural reality. An analysis of existing media content offers filmmakers a clearer insight into spectators' dispositions towards the stories and characters in their films, enabling them to challenge, reduce or strategically utilise social or narrative stereotypes and clichés. This article discusses the benefits of using content analysis and its methodology in the context of teaching documentary film practice at undergraduate level, although the same methodology can be used by established filmmakers who aim to engage in a critical or research-led film practice.


Major objective of the paper is to study the impact of financial restructuring on corporate performance. The data was collected from secondary sources. Financial statements of steel sector firms both large and medium scale firms were analyzed and comparison of parameters such as sales, gross profits, net profits, gross assets, taxes paid by them to the government and current ratio, before and after restructuring was undertaken. Paired t-test was used to compare the performance of these firms before restructuring and after restructuring. The empirical results indicate that financial restructuring has a significant impact on the financial performance of large and medium sized firms in the long run.


The method of competitive binding [Kaplan, Stevenson & Hartley (1971) Biochem. J. 124, 289-299] with 1-fluoro-2,4-dinitrobenzene as the labelling reagent [Duggleby & Kaplan (1975) Biochemistry 14, 5168-5175] was used to determine the chemical properties, namely pK and reactivity, of the amino groups, the histidine residues and the tyrosine residues of the dimeric form of pig zinc-free insulin at 20.0 degrees C. The N-terminal glycine residue of the A-chain has a pK of 7.7 and a slightly higher than normal reactivity. The N-terminal phenylalanine residue of the B-chain has a pK of 6.9 and is approximately an order of magnitude more reactive than a corresponding amino group with the same pK value. The lysine epsilon-amino group has an unusually low pK of 7.0 but has approximately the expected reactivity of such a group. In the case of the two histidine and four tyrosine residues only the average properties of each class were determined. The histidine residues have a pK value of approx. 6.6, but, however, their reactivity is at least an order of magnitude greater than that of a free imidazole group. The tyrosine residues have a pK value of approx. 10, but their average reactivities are substantially less than for a free phenolic group. At alkaline pH values above 8 the reactivity of all the functional groups show sharp discontinuities, indicating that insulin is undergoing a structural change that alters the properties of these groups.


The retinal pigment epithelium (RPE)-dependent visual cycle provides 11-cis-retinal to opsins in the photoreceptor outer segments to generate functional visual pigments that initiate phototransduction in response to light stimuli. Both RPE65 isomerase of the visual cycle and the rhodopsin visual pigment have recently been identified as critical players in mediating light-induced retinal degeneration. These findings suggest that the expression and function of RPE65 and rhodopsin need to be coordinately controlled to sustain normal vision and to protect the retina from photodamage. However, the mechanism controlling the development of the retinal visual system remains poorly understood. Here, we show that deficiency in ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF) up-regulates the levels of rod and cone opsins accompanied by an increase in the thickness of the outer nuclear layers and the lengths of cone and rod outer segments in the mouse retina. Moreover, retinoid isomerase activity, expression levels of RPE65 and lecithin:retinol acyltransferase (LRAT), which synthesizes the RPE65 substrate, were also significantly increased in the Cntf−/− RPE. Rod a-wave and cone b-wave amplitudes of electroretinograms were increased in Cntf−/− mice, but rod b-wave amplitudes were unchanged compared with those in WT mice. Up-regulated RPE65 and LRAT levels accelerated both the visual cycle rate and recovery rate of rod light sensitivity in Cntf−/− mice. Of note, rods and cones in Cntf−/− mice exhibited hypersusceptibility to light-induced degeneration. These results indicate that CNTF is a common extracellular factor that prevents excessive production of opsins, the photoreceptor outer segments, and 11-cis-retinal to protect rods and cones from photodamage.


A voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) based analog-to-digital converter (ADC) is a time-based architecture with a first-order noise-shaping property, which can be implemented using a VCO and digital circuits. This paper analyzes the performance of VCO-based ADCs in the presence of nonidealities such as jitter, nonlinearity, mismatch, and the metastability of D flip-flops. Based on this analysis, design criteria for determining parameters for VCO-based ADCs are described. In addition, a digital calibration technique to enhance the spurious-free dynamic range degraded by the nonlinearity is also introduced. To verify the theoretical analysis, a prototype chip is implemented in a 0.13-¿m CMOS process. With a 500-MHz sampling frequency, the prototype achieves a signal-to-noise ratio ranging from 71.8 to 21.3 dB for an input bandwidth of 100 kHz-247 MHz, while dissipating 12.6 mW and occupying an area of 0.078 mm2.


We design and study a Contextual Memory Tree (CMT), a learning memory controller that inserts new memories into an experience store of unbounded size. It is designed to efficiently query for memories from that store, supporting logarithmic time insertion and retrieval operations. Hence CMT can be integrated into existing statistical learning algorithms as an augmented memory unit without substantially increasing training and inference computation. Furthermore CMT operates as a reduction to classification, allowing it to benefit from advances in representation or architecture. We demonstrate the efficacy of CMT by augmenting existing multi-class and multi-label classification algorithms with CMT and observe statistical improvement. We also test CMT learning on several image-captioning tasks to demonstrate that it performs computationally better than a simple nearest neighbors memory system while benefitting from reward learning.


Purpose

This paper aims to investigate the motivations behind Muslim consumers' boycotting of foreign products. The act of boycotting foreign products has become increasingly common among Muslim consumers. Products from different countries-of-origin are their boycott targets.

Design/methodology/approach

The study adopted semi-structured in-depth interviews and focus-group discussions for data collection. A total of 36 Indonesian subjects participated in the study, representing the "university student" and "non-university student" samples. Leximancer, a qualitative analytical tool, was used to identify important motivations for boycotting behaviour among Muslim consumers.

Findings

Contrary to previous findings, this study found that Muslim consumers do not boycott solely for religious reasons. For example, most participants reported they boycotted Chinese products because they would like to protect their local products, along with the religious-based motivation of rejecting uncertainty about the halal certification of the products. Thus, the motivations identified from this study were not related exclusively to religion.

Practical implications

The present study offers new insights into the religious and secular motivations of Muslim consumers' boycotts. Foreign products should adopt localised strategies such as repeatedly reminding consumers of the true halal nature of their products and their contribution to the local people.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the recognition of new insights into Muslim motivation to boycott product. The results develop important concepts surrounding the issue of boycotting foreign products. A concept map has been produced to offer a more comprehensive picture of Muslim's boycotting behaviour.


State and Society in 21st Century China: Crisis, Contention, and Legitimation, edited by Peter Hays Gries and Stanley Rosen. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. xvi + 263 pp. £19.99 (paperback). The ambitious scope of this book is evident from the terms in its title-state, society, crisis, contention, legitimation. It is clearly a challenge to encompass all of these large themes in a work of some 250 pages, and to integrate the approaches of 12 authors in order to address those themes in a systematic fashion. By and large the challenge is met successfully. What might have been a rather mundane collection of reports concerning social conflicts in China is enriched by the skill of the contributors in synthesizing the findings of large bodies of recent research while adopting a self-conscious intention to "rethink" frameworks of scholarly analysis. The areas of contention covered include two chapters on unemployed workers-Dorothy Solinger on "the shift of the urban proletariat from master to mendicant" and Timothy Weston on the state's reneging on its "social contract" with industrial workers, focusing on unemployment in "the Chinese rust belt". Patricia Thornton examines local-level tax protests; Kevin O'Brien, local cadre misconduct; and Colin Mackerras, Han-minority relations. Teresa Wright writes on the China Democracy Party and the China Labor Bulletin, Stanley Rosen on attitudes and behavior of Chinese youth, and Brace Dickson on Communist Party adaptation, especially its strategy of inclusion. Two chapters concern nationalism-Peter Gries on the changing relationship between official nationalism and expressions of popular nationalism, and Richard Kraus on the significance of regaining plundered Chinese art works. Vivienne Shue addresses the notion of legitimacy crisis most explicitly, and Harley Balzer offers a comparative perspective on transition from state-socialism, focusing on Russia. This is a very good book. To a large extent the editors have adopted a formula of guaranteed success, in presenting chapters by authors of the highest standing in their areas of expertise, such as Solinger or Mackerras. The collection not only has state-of-the-field authority but also conveys the complexity of issues by unpacking the terms "state" and "society", providing an effective and encompassing view of the sources of contention in Chinese society and politics and the relationships between the two. Also impressive is the sense of the dynamics of emerging contention. Most notable here is the chapter by O'Brien, typical of the subtlety and insight of his analyses of Chinese politics. While contention is richly portrayed, the other two terms of the sub-title are not served so well. It is not clear that we are in any way presented with a "crisis", in either of the senses commonly used-a great danger, or a major turning-point. Indeed, several of the contributors suggest otherwise, as in Shue's sceptical views on the existence of any "crisis of legitimacy" (p. 43) and Balzer's more general cautionary comments. In dealing with legitimation, the book tends to suggest questions without always getting very far in suggesting answers. To some extent this is a result of the commitment indicated by the editors-"an inductive, bottom-up interrogation of political contestation in China", in order to avoid the problems of "liberal bias" and "procrustean [approaches], foisting Western categories and concepts on Chinese realities" (pp. 4-5). The benefit of that commitment can be seen in the solid empirical groundings of most of the chapters. Nevertheless, several chapters see the utility of extra-Chinese categories and concepts. …


The spatio-temporal characterization of an isolated attosecond pulse is investigated theoretically in a two-color field. Our results show that a few-cycle isolated attosecond pulse with the center wavelength of 16 nm can be generated effectively by adding a weak controlling field. Using the split and delay units, the isolated attosecond pulse can be split to the two same ones, and then single-pinhole diffractive patterns of the two pulses with different delays can be achieved. The diffractive patterns depend severely on the periods of the attosecond pulses, which can be helpful to obtain temporal information of the coherent sources.


The Hebrew Bible formulates two sets of law: one for the Israelites and one for the gentile "residents" living in the Holy Land. Law Beyond Israel: From the Bible to the Qur'an argues that these biblical laws for non-Israelites form the historical basis of qur'anic law. The study corroborates its central claim by assessing laws for gentiles in late antique Jewish and especially in Christian legal discourse, pointing to previously underappreciated legal continuity from the Hebrew Bible to the New Testament and from late antique Christianity to nascent Islam. This volume first sketches the legal obligations that the Hebrew Bible imposes on humanity more broadly and, more specifically, on the non-Israelite residents of the Holy Land. It then traces these laws through Second Temple Judaism to the early Jesus movement, illustrating how the biblical laws for residents inform those formulated in the Acts of the Apostles. Building on this legal continuity, the study employs detailed historical and literary analyses of legal narratives in order to make three propositions. First, rabbinic laws for gentiles, the so-called Noahide Laws, while offering a more lenient interpretation than the one we find in Acts, are equally based on the biblical laws for gentile residents of the Holy Land. Second, Christians generally appreciated and even expanded the gentile laws of Acts. Third, the Qur'an remakes traditional Arabian religious practice by formulating its own distinctive approach to the biblical laws for gentiles, in close continuity with—and at times in critical distance from—late antique Jewish and especially Christian gentile law.


In the late nineteenth century, the Brazilian army staged several campaigns against the settlement of Canudos in northeastern Brazil. The colony s residents, primarily disenfranchised former slaves, mestizos, landless farmers, and uprooted Indians, followed a man known as Antonio Conselheiro ( The Counselor ), who promoted a communal existence, free of taxes and oppression. To the fledgling republic of Brazil, the settlement represented a threat to their system of government, which had only recently been freed from monarchy. Estimates of the death toll at Canudos range from fifteen thousand to thirty thousand.Sentencing Canudos offers an original perspective on the hegemonic intellectual discourse surrounding this monumental event in Brazilian history. In her study, Adriana Michele Campos Johnson offers a close examination of nation building and the silencing of other voices through the reinvisioning of history. Looking primarily to Euclides da Cunha s Os Sertoes, which has become the defining and nearly exclusive account of the conflict, she maintains that the events and people of Canudos have been sentenced to history by this work. Johnson investigates other accounts of Canudos such as local oral histories, letters, newspaper articles, and the writings of Cunha s contemporaries, Afonso Arinos and Manoel Benicio, in order to strip away political agendas. She also seeks to place the inhabitants and events of Canudos within the realm of everydayness by recalling aspects of daily life that have been left out of official histories.Johnson analyzes the role of intellectuals in the process of culture and state formation and the ensuing sublimation of subaltern histories and populations. She echoes recent scholarship that posits subalternity as the product of discourse that must be disputed in order to recover cultural identities and offers a view of Canudos and postcolonial Latin America as a place to think from, not about."


Genetic Programming (GP) often uses large training sets and requires all individuals to be evaluated on all training cases during selection. Random down-sampled lexicase selection evaluates individuals on only a random subset of the training cases allowing for more individuals to be explored with the same amount of program executions. However, creating a down-sample randomly might exclude important cases from the current down-sample for a number of generations, while cases that measure the same behavior (synonymous cases) may be overused despite their redundancy. In this work, we introduce Informed Down-Sampled Lexicase Selection. This method leverages population statistics to build down-samples that contain more distinct and therefore informative training cases. Through an empirical investigation across two different GP systems (PushGP and Grammar-Guided GP), we find that informed down-sampling significantly outperforms random down-sampling on a set of contemporary program synthesis benchmark problems. Through an analysis of the created down-samples, we find that important training cases are included in the down-sample consistently across independent evolutionary runs and systems. We hypothesize that this improvement can be attributed to the ability of Informed Down-Sampled Lexicase Selection to maintain more specialist individuals over the course of evolution, while also benefiting from reduced per-evaluation costs.


MicroRNAs are known to regulate gene expression either by repressing translation or by directing sequence-specific degradation of target mRNAs, and are therefore considered to be key regulators of gene expression. A gene-regulatory pathway involving heterochronic genes controls the temporal pattern of Caenorhabditis elegans postembryonic cell lineages. Based on experimental data, we propose and analyze a mathematical model of a gene-regulatory module in this nematode involving two heterochronic genes, lin-14 and lin-28, which are both regulated by lin-4, encoding a microRNA. The conditions under which the model experiences bifurcations are investigated. We determine the parameter regimes for which the system exhibits monostability and bistability, the latter associated with a biological switch. We observe in particular that bistability occurs without co-operativity, in keeping with knowledge about the regulatory behaviour of lin-14 and lin-28. The analytical results are confirmed by numerical simulations that illustrate how the microRNA lin-4 plays a crucial role in determining of the qualitative dynamics of the model.


In this report, we extend our previous work within MOU 372 on modeling and longitudinal speed control design for heavy commercial vehicles equipped with a variable compression braking mechanisms. Previously, we developed a detailed crankangle based simulation model for a six cylinder, 350 hp diesel engine with a continuously varying compression brake, that is capable of describing the intrinsic interactions between individual cylinder intake and exhaust processes, turbocharger dynamics during combustion and braking modes, and the transition between those modes. Moreover, for control design and analysis purposes we derived a low-order approximation of that model. In this report we present our new results on developing longitudinal control algorithms that coordinate the variable compression brake with conventional service brakes and gear selection. Speci cally, we integrate the compression brake actuator with the service brakes and design a PI{controller that emulates the driver's actions on long grades. The controller uses the engine speed measurement to activate the service brakes only when retarding power of the compression brake is insuÆcient. We also employ robust linear control technique using the concept of structured singular values to design a controller that is robust to parameter variations and model uncertainty in the CHV. Finally, we compare the performance of this robust controller with the performance of an adaptive control scheme that we have derived within MOU 393. The performance of all the controllers is demonstrated through extensive simulations on the 24th order nonlinear vehicle model developed in our previous work within MOU 372.


This paper describes how the past century has seen the rise of an urban environment that differs greatly from anything that has gone before. Urbanization has brought many benefits, but has also raised concerns about sustainability. Urban/suburban sustainability goes hand in hand with physical and social environment sustainability, i.e. the challenge of creating sustainable, healthy communities. Development must occur with a sense of place, history and cultural distinctiveness, with a view to reducing inequality between groups. In other words, proper development and planning can create healthy communities. Research into the role of the social and material environment in determining healthy communities has highlighted the need to use more innovative data in describing geographical areas, in spite of the difficulty and time involved in the collection, utilization, comparison and interpretation of such data. This paper is based on a case study of empirical data collected in Portugal. Logistic regression models were used to measure the relationship between the material and social environment and self-rated health (representing quality of life and wellbeing). We used new contextual measures, created through PCA and individual data from the National Health Survey for Lisbon Metropolitan Area (LMA). The results show the importance of neighborhood (social and material environment) in determining health, alongside traditional factors such as age, social class and lifestyles. In LMA, a high level of political engagement and community participation, and good access to public transport and to health services improve self-rated health scores. Associations were found to be independent of gender, age, social class (occupation and education), economic activity and lifestyle (physical activity or smoking). Moreover, both the features of social and material environment and the magnitude of association with self-rated health are different for both genders.


This dissertation examines influence and decision-making within the transatlantic security regime, focusing on the four major member states of NATO. Two cases of post-Cold War transatlantic military intervention are examined in which regime member states sought to develop and adopt a single, collective policy on the use of military force outside of NATO's traditional (i.e. collective defense) area of operations: Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. These cases illustrate the "puzzle" that the dissertation attempts to solve: why did the transatlantic security regime adopt a common military intervention policy relatively quickly in one case (Kosovo) but much more slowly in other the other case (Bosnia) despite the fact that deep policy differences were initially present in both cases? The dependent variable in the dissertation is thus the likelihood of the transatlantic security regime adopting and successfully implementing a common policy regarding the use of military force in a given case. Relative distribution of power among regime members has no effect on collective policy congruence whatsoever. Collective risk analysis and ideological compatibility, however, strongly influenced regime policy cohesion (or lack thereof) in both case studies. This seems to indicate that regime policy cohesion is a function of actor rationality and yet also through rather socially constructed ideological compatibility. These variables are mutually supportive. That is, strong correlation in each is necessary to precipitate collective regime policy cohesion. Thus, both a similar view among the major regime states of the costs and benefits of military intervention and a significant level of ideological compatibility among their national leaders is necessary to create and maintain regime policy cohesion. The active presence and involvement of an international institution had moderate effect in both cases. However, while the active engagement of NATO may not, in itself, be a causal factor in regime policy cohesion, the institution may help to more rapidly facilitate policy cohesion as long as the influence of variables four and five is present. This variable is thus rather interesting; however, additional case studies are necessary to explore its role and function in this issue-area. Finally, collective threat perception and collective domestic pressures have mixed results, with domestic pressures being the stronger of the two. Again, this seems to indicate that notions of collective state cooperative behavior based primarily (or even solely) upon perceived external threat is not accurate. Like the institutional variable, collective domestic pressures plays an uncertain and yet interesting role. It is also certainly not a causal factor in itself but may play a much stronger role dependent upon the strength of the other variables.


The construction of a system of national literature is based on an understanding of the meaning of the language form and its adaptation to the area where literary creativity is developing. The relevance of the study is determined by the fact that it is necessary to highlight the directions of the locality of texts and their formalization in the space of a geographical nature. The novelty of the study is determined by the fact that the connection between the locality of a text and the geographical basis is considered as the foundation for the formation of the literary tradition and as a formalization of previously known social processes. The article reveals the features of the literary heritage of M. Zhumabayev and its influence on the formation of the modern literary Kazakh language. The practical significance of the study is determined by the fact that the local text is considered within the framework of a general understanding of the problems of national literature.


Castor beans (Ricinus communis) contain ricin. Ricin is a glycoprotein reported to cause hypotension, gastroenteritis, depression, and death. However, few deaths are reported following castor bean ingestion in animals. From January 1987 to December 1998, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals-National Animal Poison Control Center received 98 incidents of castor bean ingestion in dogs. The most commonly reported clinical signs were vomiting, depression, and diarrhea. Death or euthanasia occurred in 9% of the cases. The severity of clinical signs following castor bean ingestion may depend on whether the beans were chewed or swallowed whole.


We present Sequential Neural Likelihood (SNL), a new method for Bayesian inference in simulator models, where the likelihood is intractable but simulating data from the model is possible. SNL trains an autoregressive flow on simulated data in order to learn a model of the likelihood in the region of high posterior density. A sequential training procedure guides simulations and reduces simulation cost by orders of magnitude. We show that SNL is more robust, more accurate and requires less tuning than related neural-based methods, and we discuss diagnostics for assessing calibration, convergence and goodness-of-fit.


The need of soybean in Indonesia grows from time to time. Now, Indonesia imports at about 1,1 milion ton/ha yearly. This condition indicates that the need of soybean in Indonesia can be a serious problem of agricultural sector in the future. Furthermore, the climate change issue as a result of human activity used a large amount of fosil fuel will derive a new problem for agricultural sector which requires a better strategy of anticipation. This point out the important of information in order to estimate the potential of soybean's yield in Indoensia in the future. In general, this research is designed to identify the evidence of climate change and to learn the impact of the climate change scenarios on the future of soybean's yield in Bandung district. For this purpose, literature study and analysis of global circulation model (data) data are applied for identifying the occurrence of climate change. Then, the impact analysis of these scenarios on soybean's yield is conducted by using climate and agricultural simulation model, which consist of statistic and mechanistic models. Analysis of the earth surface mean temperature shows the increasing of global air temperature has been started since 19's century with the occurence of increasing temperature from about -0.4 °C to about 0.1 °C in the year of 1940's. Then, the occurence of climate change in Indonesia can be identified using monthly rainfall data for a certain period. Previous study, which has been conducted by Kaimuddin (2000) shows the changing of rainfall pattern in Indonesia. Additionally, analysis on Global Circulation Model (GCM) data for various climate change scenarios reveal the evidence of rainfall and temperature changing variability in percentage for each model in year 2020, 2050 and 2080. The highest value of A2 scenario in come from NIESS, meanwhile for B2 scenario is GFDL. Then, the minimum value is mostly gained from ECHAM model. Moreover, the result of simulation using maximum and minimum value from those scenario for year 2020 decrease in almost of the whole area of Bandung.


Tropical savannas and rainforests contrast in their flammability and the fire resilience of their associated species. While savanna species generally exhibit high resilience to burning, there is much debate about the fire resilience of forest-associated species, and the persistence of forest patches in a flammable savanna matrix. Where fire has been excluded, savanna tends on a trajectory towards forest, with an increase in forest-associated plants and animal species. This study tested the idea that given the high proportion of forest-associated taxa in long-unburnt savanna, the fauna of these areas would be expected to exhibit less resilience to fire than the fauna in frequently burnt savannas. The study investigated the immediate and short-term effects on ant assemblages of re-introducing fire into long-unburnt savanna in northern Australia. The ant fauna exhibited high resistance to fires, with no significant short-term change in mean abundance or species richness; instead, seasonality had a far stronger influence on overall ant activity. Fire caused dramatic declines in dominance of the patchily distributed forest-associated species Oecophylla smaragdina and Papyrius sp., but had no effect on overall dominance by open savanna species of Iridomyrmex. Dominance by Iridomyrmex pallidus declined, but this was compensated for by increases in I. reburrus, while two other species of Iridomyrmex showed no change. This indicates a high level of functional redundancy among dominant species of Iridomyrmex, which universally dominate open savanna communities, but not of dominant forest-associated species. Overall, our findings demonstrate a high degree of fire-resilience of the long-unburnt savanna ant fauna. Despite the occurrence of forest-associated species, the high proportion of savanna species persisting in this habitat means that long-unburnt savanna retains the general response characteristics of frequently burnt savanna.


Background: The potential carcinogenicity of naphthalene (NA), a ubiquitous environmental pollutant, in human respiratory tract is a subject of intense debate. Chief among the uncertainties in risk assessment for NA is whether human lung CYP2A13 and CYP2F1 can mediate NA's respiratory tract toxicity. Objectives: We aimed to assess the in vivo function of CYP2A13 and CYP2F1 in NA bioactivation and NA-induced respiratory tract toxicity in mouse models. Methods: Rates of microsomal NA bioactivation and the effects of an anti-CYP2A antibody were determined for lung and nasal olfactory mucosa (OM) from Cyp2abfgs-null, CYP2A13-humanized, and CYP2A13/2F1-humanized mice. The extent of NA respiratory toxicity was compared among wild-type, Cyp2abfgs-null, and CYP2A13/2F1-humanized mice following inhalation exposure at an occupationally relevant dose (10 ppm for 4 hr). Results: In vitro studies indicated that the NA bioactivation activities in OM and lung of the CYP2A13/2F1-humanized mice were primarily contributed by, respectively, CYP2A13 and CYP2F1. CYP2A13/2F1-humanized mice showed greater sensitivity to NA than Cyp2abfgs-null mice, with greater depletion of nonprotein sulfhydryl and occurrence of cytotoxicity (observable by routine histology) in the OM, at 2 or 20 hr after termination of NA exposure, in humanized mice. Focal, rather than gross, lung toxicity was observed in Cyp2abfgs-null and CYP2A13/2F1-humanized mice; however, the extent of NA-induced lung injury (shown as volume fraction of damaged cells) was significantly greater in the terminal bronchioles of CYP2A13/2F1-humanized mice than in Cyp2abfgs-null mice. Conclusion: CYP2F1 is an active enzyme. Both CYP2A13 and CYP2F1 are active toward NA in the CYP2A13/2F1-humanized mice, where they play significant roles in NA-induced respiratory tract toxicity. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP844


Aim To examine the predictive value of pregnancy associated plasma protein (PAPP-A) for various markers of poor pregnancy outcome. Method Databases at University Hospital Lewisham were used retrospectively to identify all singleton pregnancies which underwent first trimester combined screening between July 2008 and April 2010 and who were found to have levels of PAPP-A≤0.4 MOM. The perinatal courses of these pregnancies (n=256) were evaluated for signs of adverse outcome (spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, preterm labour, intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), early onset pre-eclampsia, late-onset pre-eclampsia, gestational hypertension and placental abruption) and were compared to the outcomes of a matched control group of pregnancies (n=277) with normal PAPP-A levels. Results Women with low serum PAPP-A were 5.0 times more likely to suffer fetal loss than those in the control group with an increased incidence of spontaneous abortion (RR 1.7) and of stillbirth (RR 2.3). The overall relative risk of IUGR was 2.2. However, IUGR was 4.3 times more prevalent in pregnancies with PAPP-A≤0.2 than in pregnancies from the control group. Results indicated that women with low PAPP-A were also at increased risk of preterm birth (RR 1.9), early pre-eclampsia (RR 2.0), late pre-eclampsia (RR 1.9) and gestational hypertension (RR 1.3). There were no incidences of placental abruption in live birth pregnancies from either group. Conclusions This study shows that serum PAPP-A is an important marker for poor pregnancy outcome and that women with low serum PAPP-A levels would benefit from increased monitoring of their pregnancies.


Normobaric hypoxic conditioning (HC) is defined as exposure to systemic and/or local hypoxia at rest (passive) or combined with exercise training (active). HC has been previously used by healthy and athletic populations to enhance their physical capacity and improve performance in the lead up to competition. Recently, HC has also been applied acutely (single exposure) and chronically (repeated exposure over several weeks) to overweight and obese populations with the intention of managing and potentially increasing cardio-metabolic health and weight loss. At present, it is unclear what the cardio-metabolic health and weight loss responses of obese populations are in response to passive and active HC. Exploration of potential benefits of exposure to both passive and active HC may provide pivotal findings for improving health and well being in these individuals. A systematic literature search for articles published between 2000 and 2017 was carried out. Studies investigating the effects of normobaric HC as a novel therapeutic approach to elicit improvements in the cardio-metabolic health and weight loss of obese populations were included. Studies investigated passive (n = 7; 5 animals, 2 humans), active (n = 4; all humans) and a combination of passive and active (n = 4; 3 animals, 1 human) HC to an inspired oxygen fraction ([Formula: see text]) between 4.8 and 15.0%, ranging between a single session and daily sessions per week, lasting from 5 days up to 8 mo. Passive HC led to reduced insulin concentrations (-37 to -22%) in obese animals and increased energy expenditure (+12 to +16%) in obese humans, whereas active HC lead to reductions in body weight (-4 to -2%) in obese animals and humans, and blood pressure (-8 to -3%) in obese humans compared with a matched workload in normoxic conditions. Inconclusive findings, however, exist in determining the impact of acute and chronic HC on markers such as triglycerides, cholesterol levels, and fitness capacity. Importantly, most of the studies that included animal models involved exposure to severe levels of hypoxia ([Formula: see text] = 5.0%; simulated altitude >10,000 m) that are not suitable for human populations. Overall, normobaric HC demonstrated observable positive findings in relation to insulin and energy expenditure (passive), and body weight and blood pressure (active), which may improve the cardio-metabolic health and body weight management of obese populations. However, further evidence on responses of circulating biomarkers to both passive and active HC in humans is warranted.


This paper critically reconsiders debates about the business case for workplace diversity as exemplified in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) activism. These debates have long suggested that there is an oppositional distinction between justifying diversity on self-interested business grounds and justifying it on the grounds of ethics, equality and social justice. This has led to an impasse between ethically driven diversity theory and activism, and the dominant business case approach commonly deferred to in managerial practice. As a way of mediating this impasse the contribution of this paper is to demonstrate how 'ethical praxis' can be deployed both despite and because of non-ethically motivated approaches to ethics in business. Drawing on Judith Butler's and Emmanuel Levinas's considerations of the relationship between ethics and the practice of justice, it is argued that critiques of the business case for diversity rely on a pure ethics that does not adequately recognize its connection to lived politics. Conversely, support for the business case evinces a politics that has failed to remember its origin in ethics. The paper positions ethical praxis as a political intervention undertaken in the name of ethics and uses this to suggest that the business case, despite its ethical poverty, holds potential to create real opportunities for justice in organizations.


Where did California get its name? Or for that matter where did a thousand and one cities and countries, peaks and valleys, rivers and bays get their names? This little book succinctly gives the why, how, when, and where of the more frequently encountered names on the land of California, from Abalone to Zaca. From Abadi Creek to Zzyzyx Spring, thousands of discoveries await the reader of "California Place Names." This is the fourth edition, extensively revised and expanded, of a classic work of Californiana. It has been updated to incorporate the latest research on California place names published by local historians in the various parts of the state and to include new names that have been added to the California map since 1969.


The fast pace of development of automated vehicles is being driven by a number of converging forces including self-driving technologies, mobile computing, and ondemand vehicle and ride sharing. The coming together of these powerful trends is shaping an urban mobility future inspired by a vision of zero road injuries and low carbon living. The introduction of self-driving vehicles will have major socioeconomic impacts on our society - some good and some bad. Although self-driving vehicles are expected to pave the way to drastic improvements in road safety and urban mobility, they can potentially have adverse impacts on the liveability of our cities if they are not planned as part of a holistic approach to promote low carbon mobility. This chapter provides an environmental scan and an objective review and analysis of the technological, social and economic impacts and trends surrounding (ultimately) autonomous vehicles, and how they are likely to influence the transport and mobility industries and marketplace now and into the future. The chapter also outlines the technological, societal and regulatory challenges that must be overcome before widespread adoption and deployment. The chapter gathers and collates information from a wide body of literature to help city planners, infrastructure engineers and other stakeholders in responding to the likely needs and impacts of this disruptive technology and to inform their policy positions in shaping the future of urban mobility.


We develop new techniques to study regularity questions for moduli spaces of pseudoholomorphic curves that are multiply covered. Among the main results, we show that unbranched multiple covers of closed holomorphic curves are generically regular, and simple index 0 curves in dimensions greater than four are generically super-rigid, implying e.g. that the Gromov-Witten invariants of Calabi-Yau 3-folds reduce to sums of local invariants for finite sets of embedded curves. We also establish partial results on super-rigidity in dimension four and regularity of branched covers, and briefly discuss the outlook for bifurcation analysis. The proofs are based on a representation-theoretic splitting of Cauchy-Riemann operators with symmetries.


We previously suggested a method to characterize the oxygen balance in High-Rate Algal Ponds (HRAPs). The method was based on a hydrodynamic study of the reactor combined with a tracer gas method to measure the oxygen transfer coefficient. From such a method diurnal variations of photosynthesis and respiration can be quantified and the net oxygen production rate determined. In this paper we propose a similar approach to obtain carbon dioxide balances in HRAPs. Then oxygen and carbon dioxide balances can be compared.


This paper discussed about the development of electronically controlled fertilizer applicator machine based on modified riding type paddy transplanter tractor. The machine had ability to perform variable rate of application dose using urea, phosphor, and NPK compound. The developed variable rate applicator (VRA) equipped with digital controlled metering devices so that the dose of application can be given accurately and the amount of application can be change in flexible way according to recommended dose. The machine has 4 unit of metering devices, has 8 application rows, and equipped with pneumatic diffusers. RTK-DGPS was used to monitor the position in the field. Performance test has been done for several parameters, included uniformity of air flow at each diffuser, granular fertilizer spreader pattern, and linearity of actual amount of fertilizer with respect to the commanded dose. Average rate of air flow in each diffuser was 0.0073 m3/s, with 7.23 % CV. Total working width of the machine was about 5 m. Field capacity was about 0.12 ha/hours. The results of the tests on metering dose showed that the develop VRA could spread fertilizer uniformly and gave accurate application dose. The yield result showed that uniformity of unhulled rice production was reached 74.7%.


The distinction between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism is new to the child literature, but initial findings suggest that it may have important implications for understanding adjustment. This study examined how expressions of narcissism in children influence their reactions to a mild egothreats experience. Children (N = 124; aged 8-12 years) completed self-ratings before and after doing a brief but challenging task. Negative emotions, self-conscious emotions, and performance estimates were measured. Regression analyses showed that, even after controlling the effects of self-esteem and temperament, vulnerable narcissism was related to increased hostility, anger, and shame, whereas grandiose narcissism was related to inflated performance estimates following the task. These results demonstrate the unique roles of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism in children.


In this paper we present the current state of the project InFIS - Integrated Research Infrastructure. Specifically we show how a PV Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) can be connected to a grid emulator and a central simulation environment. The grid emulator is a modular multilevel converter consisting of six arms containing four Insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) submodules each. The grid simulation operates on commercial PHiL hardware simulating the CIGRE distribution grid benchmark network. Communication is established in real-time using the Villas Framework. Results presented show how each component is built and connected to the central simulation system as well as some initial results on system scaling and dimensioning.


With its first internationally endorsed local election in decades, first rotational chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and financial assistance pledged from donor countries and
 multilateral institutions, Cambodia made significant progress in 2002. Prime Minister Hun Sen9s Cambodian People9s Party swept to victory in local elections, but for the first time it will have to share
 power at the local level. The Royalist FUNCINPEC Party underwent further decline and infighting. Cambodia received $615 million in financial pledges from international donors, and economic growth increased
 by a modest 4.5%% to 5%%. In February, the United Nations withdrew from negotiations for a trial of surviving leaders of Pol Pot9s regime in the 1970s, but late in the year the possibility of
 further discussions emerged.


Abstract. Mountain regions cover 20% of terrestrial land surfaces and represent one of the principle source regions for the world's hydrological Systems. Mountain regions are today under pressure as a result of human interference; climatic change could lead to an additional stress on natural and socio-economic Systems. Paleo-climatic evidence has shown that past climatic change has lead to substantial shifts in the distribution of Vegetation. If the present warming trend were to continue into the 21" Century, there would be significant impacts on ecosystems. In particular. certain species may become extinct because ot their limited capacity for migration to regions with favorable climatic and soil conditions. In most mountain regions, a warmer climate will lead to a reduction in the mass of glaciers, as well as snow-pack and permafrost. Changes in precipitation regimes may have far-reaching consequences for fresh-water supply to agriculture, tourism and hydro-power. These shifts would affect not only mountain populations, but also those living downstream from the mountains and who depend on mountain-fed water resources. The social structure of populations in the mountains of the developing world may be disrupted by environmental change, because of the impacts this change is likely to have on the natural resources essential to traditional lifestyles of mountain communities.


This article brings together the concerns of environmental and disability movements through examining the role of transport. Both movements critique current transport policy and practice. The disability movement has analysed how it marginalises the needs of disabled people, while environmentalists argue current transport trends are unsustainable and marginalise alternatives. Although these critiques operate independently and even seem opposed to each other, a common agenda can be developed through extending the social model of disability. The social model can be used to understand how car-dominated transport systems can be understood as disabling populations larger than those conventionally recognised as "disabled". The car offers the technological fix of enabling abilities, in particular speed and strength, but in practice disables in a number of ways. Urban sprawl and traffic increase barriers to participation and access for many both "able-bodied" and "disabled", while car dominance damages social interaction and limits sensory perception. Furthermore, the car economy is a major cause of impairment through crashes and physical inactivity. Understanding these together requires integrating the social model of disability with an eco-social model of impairment. This can show how unequal forms of social organisation are embodied in people and environments to produce patterns of impairment, disability and disadvantage. Finally we suggest policies to move towards sustainable societies with increased opportunities for broader social participation. The article argues that the two movements can create and benefit from a shared vision of socially inclusive, low-energy, sustainable transport.


This book addresses the question of what it takes to develop social indicators that genuinely influence important public decisions. It looks historically at the processes of creating and using three important social indicators in the United States: unemployment rates, standard budgets, and crime rates. It then develops principles for choosing concepts, designing measures, and creating policy processes that institutionalize their use. For this second edition, Innes has provided a major new introductory essay, which reflects on social indicators research and her own and others' continuing work on the role of quantitative and other professionally generated information in policy making. She contends that in practice knowledge is influential as it becomes part of the myths that shape public life, as it empowers some policy actors over others, as it establishes the agendas and frames the problem, as it sets the terms for negotiation and public discourse. For these arguments, she draws on her research on human rights policy, environmental impact assessment, housing policy and local community development. The case studies in the original book have stood the test of time, and remain valid supports for the author's interpretations. The author contends that to understand how knowledge and policy are linked, we need to replace the "scientific" model of explicit knowledge use with a more inclusive, interactive model of knowledge influence. To do this we must rethink both the education and practice of policy professionals. Innes sees indicators as lenses on the world that help define problems and point the way to solutions. It is not surprising that the case studies show that the most influential indicators are developed jointly with policy and theories about the problem. As she says, "there are no facts without theories and the only way a statistician can keep out of politics is to collect only irrelevant data." This new edition will be of immense interest to those interested in the sociology of ideas, policy studies, and the emerging field of knowledge transfer. "Judith Innes" is a professor in the city and regional planning department of the University of California, Berkeley.


Abstract The present paper aligns to the economic policy body of research granting intensive efforts to the sphere of analysing the unemployment rate's evolution as well as its primary drivers and effects in the context of the Europe 2020 strategy. Considering one of the agenda's main targets – increasing employability among the European Union's states, this paper analyses the areas funded by the European Social Fund as well as the country policy specifics in deriving the behaviour of the Beveridge curve associated with the EU-13 countries given the shift of European Union's funds from old member states to newer ones. As such, the study employs the tools of Simultaneous Equations Systems and examines the impact of four categories of components on the Beveridge curve's behaviour - structure of the unemployed, labour market and business environment factors as well as business cycles.


Abstract This essay argues that Andrew Jarecki's 2003 documentary Capturing the Friedmans is part of a larger recent film trend in which remembered scenes of adult/child sex are used to reconfigure the meaning of white masculinity. In several recent films, memories of child sexual predators emerge on screen in scenes best described as 'virtual'. In particular, the white paedophile appears in liminal filmic spaces that replace historically specific reference points with the virtual codes of an explicitly technologically mediated reality. Building on theories of virtuality developed by Katherine Hayles and Brian Massumi, this essay argues that the white paedophile technologically re-mediates residual forms of while masculinity and refunctions them for the era of neo-liberalism. Jarecki's Oscar-nominated documentary best reveals the technological relations through which the white paedophile appears as the virtual image of a neoliberal 'real', part of a visual code of memory produced for what Stuart Hall calls new times. Keywords Paedophile; sexuality; memory; virtuality; film; documentary; masculinity; whiteness; Andrew Jarecki; Capturing the Friedmans Every time you think you have the truth in this film it sort of slithers away down some corridor and suddenly you're left wondering again. I felt that was one of the things that had to come across about the film, was how hard it was to find the truth, how hard it is to find the truth, how our memories change over time to suit our needs. You know, we think we put our memories away in a box and we can go check on them later and they'll be the same; they're never the same, they're just these electro-chemical bubbles that continue to bubble over time. Andrew Jarecki, Interview with Charlie Rose (24 June 2003). Many critics argue that we are in ait era defined by memory. The post- 1945 period is marked by a generalised trauma culture, one that has produced what Eric Santner calls a 'rhetoric of mourning' iterated as 'shattering, rupture, mutilation, fragmentation, to images of fissures, wounds, rifts, gaps, and abysses'.1 This insight is echoed by such diverse critics as Cathy Caruth, Shoshana Felman, Ian Hacking, and Andreas Huyssen, each of whom posits a turn toward memory as the historical discourse of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century.2 Film critics have also noted a marked memory turn in the cinema of this era, particularly in films treating crises in white masculine authority in the United States. In films like Christopher Nolan's Memento (2000) and Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), memory becomes the vehicle through which such authority crises are introduced, negotiated and resolved into new forms of white masculine identity. What is less frequently noted however is a peculiar subset of the new memory genre: films treating haunting memories of childhood sexual abuse. In films such as Andrew Jarecki's Capturing the Friedmans (2003), Clint Eastwood's Mystic River (2003), Gregg Aiaki s Mysterious Skin (2004), and Nicole Kassell's The Woodsman (2004), memories of child sexual abuse repeatedly return prototypical white men to scenes of a specifically sexual vulnerability. This condition of vulnerability is then resolved cinematically, through the crafting of the white 'paedophile' as both sexual type (empirically distinguishable from normal men) and virtual image (outside the representation of either past or present). Memory is yoked to a regime of what Katherine Hayles and Brian Massumi theorise as 'virtuality,' allowing the white paedophile to emerge as the vehicle for the reformation of troubled white masculinity as well as the medium for new technological relations of reality associated with neoliberalism. This essay focuses on Jarecki's 2003 documentary Capturing the Friedmans, arguing that this Oscar-nominated documentary best reveals the technological relations through which the white paedophile appears as the virtual image of a neoliberal 'real', part of a signature visual code in what I call memory for new times. …


Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most common non-melanoma skin cancer. Exposure to ultraviolet light is an important risk factor for BCC development and the disorder therefore develops commonly on body areas that are more exposed to sunlight, such as the face and neck. It is uncommon in the closed area of the body and quite rare in the perianal and genital regions. Herein, we report a 34-year-old patient with perianal BCC who had no additional risk factors.


EBV-specific T cells have been recently described to be involved in fatal encephalitis and myocarditis in cancer patients after immune checkpoint therapies. Here, we report the study of a human triple-negative breast cancer tumor (TNBC) and EBV-transformed B cells obtained from a patient-derived xenograft (PDX) that progressed into a lymphocytic neoplasm named xenograft-associated B-cell lymphoma (XABCL). T-cell receptor (TCR) high-throughput sequencing was performed to monitor the T-cell clonotypes present in the different samples. Forty-three T-cell clonotypes were found infiltrating the XABCL tissue after three passes in mice along 6 months. Eighteen of these (42%) were also found in the TNBC biopsy. TCR infiltrating the XABCL tissue showed a very restricted T-cell repertoire as compared with the biopsy-infiltrating T cells. Consequently, T cells derived from the TNBC biopsy were expanded in the presence of the B-cell line obtained from the XABCL (XABCL-LCL), after which the TCR repertoire obtained was again very restricted, i.e., only certain clonotypes were selected by the B cells. A number of these TCRs had previously been reported as sequences involved in infection, cancer, and/or autoimmunity. We then analyzed the immunopeptidome from the XABCL-LCL, to identify putative B-cell-associated peptides that might have been expanding these T cells. The HLA class I and class II-associated peptides from XABCL-LCL were then compared with published repertoires from LCL of different HLA typing. Proteins from the antigen processing and presentation pathway remained significantly enriched in the XABCL-LCL repertoire. Interestingly, some class II-presented peptides were derived from cancer-related proteins. These results suggest that bystander tumor-infiltrating EBV+ B cells acting as APC may be able to interact with tumor-infiltrating T cells and influence the TCR repertoire in the tumor site.


Background: Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and HIV are still a significant public health burden globally. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), globally there are more than 1 million cases of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV infections acquired on a daily basis. In 2016, there was an estimated 97,000 new HIV infections that occurred in Latin America. There is little to no information regarding the trends over time of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV infections in multiple Latin American countries, especially Chile which is considered a developing country. Objective: The purpose of this study is to determine the patterns of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV using hospital discharges from 2001 to 2010 across all regions of Chile. We seek to 1) assess the pattern in hospital discharges due to STDs across all regions, 2) examine the association between the outcome (STDs) and predictor variables (age, gender, region) separately 3) examine the association between the outcome (STDs) and predictor variables (age, gender, region) controlling for region. Methods: Data for this study was derived from the Chilean Department of Health Statistics and Information (DEIS). Using SAS Software (SAS 9.4, Cary NC), descriptive analyses were performed to determine the frequency distribution of the demographic data. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis were performed to examine the association between the outcome (STDs) and the predictor variables (Age, Gender and Region). Results: The number of females with STDs were 50883 (79%) and males 13836 (22%). 54% of the STD cases arose from patients aged between 25-44 years, followed by patients aged 45-64 years which accounted for 22% of the STD cases. The region with the highest number of STD cases is Santiago accounting for 39% of the total number of cases. Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), which only affects women, accounted for 66% (43085) of the STD cases among females. When compared to other STDs, the prevalence of PID occurred more in females than in males. For HIV, the results revealed that the odds of female patients being diagnosed with HIV were (AOR 0.02, 95% CI:0.02-0.09) when compared to male patients. For chlamydia, the odds of a female patient being diagnosed was (AOR 1.03 95% CI 0.85-1.25) when compared to male patients. The adjusted odds of females having syphilis is 0.31, (95% CI: 0.28-0.34) times less than the odds of males having syphilis. Therefore, there was no statistically significant difference between males and females for the outcomes of HIV, chlamydia and syphilis. Conclusion: This study shows us an overall decrease in STD diagnoses from private hospital discharges. In the year 2002, there was a slight increase, and then it decreased and plateaued until 2010. Patients aged 25-44 years had the highest cases of all STDs followed by patients aged 5-24 year which is consistent with major studies. There was no statistically significant association between STDs and gender; females had a reduced odds of being diagnosed with HIV, Syphilis, Herpes and Other STDs when compared to males. Among female patients, PID cases were the highest for all STDs.


'The commons' is a concept originating from the traditional shared use of land, but which now often refers to any social asset, physical or abstract, that is shared. This research concerns one aspect of the commons, namely the knowledge commons. The thesis explores community roles in developing and sustaining cultural institutions as key components of the knowledge commons. It focuses particularly on processes of participatory design, and on the capacity of digital technologies to support community engagement. The study takes place across the cultural contexts of the State of Victoria (Australia) and Singapore. The three key aims of the thesis are to explore in what ways and to what extent: I. The emerging concept of the knowledge commons relates to the role of cultural institutions as systems for the creation and sharing of sustainable knowledge resources by their communities. II. The notion of participative design may be applicable to the ongoing development of such systems as multi-stakeholder partnerships to meet community needs. III. Differences in national culture may affect the generality of such an analysis. The research design employs literature analysis and multiple case studies as a basis for proposing new theorisations and an analytical tool to assist future action by cultural institutions and relevant communities. The main perspective used in framing the literature analysis and case studies is Giddens' structuration theory. Structuration sees the continuing interplay between social action and social structure as the means by which the cultural patternings known as institutions are recursively produced. A complementary perspective used is Hofstede's model of cultural dimensions. Other theorists from a range of disciplines provide perspectives on particular concepts or aspects, such as the commons and participatory design. Five chapters are headed 'Foundations'. These seek to explicate key dimensions of the research, namely the knowledge commons, community knowledge, cultural institutions, participatory design, and the cultural contexts of Victoria and Singapore. Four chapters are headed 'Case Study' and deal with individual cultural institutions, or clusters of institutions, which were the sites of exploratory enquiry (generally consisting of interviews and observation, but in the case of Museum Victoria also elements of action research). The cultural institutions covered by these chapters are Museum Victoria/Women on Farms Gathering, the Asian Civilisations Museum, Public Libraries in Victoria and Public Libraries in Singapore. These insights are analysed to propose a series of related typologies. The coverage of these typologies includes resource characteristics, collective processes, and cultural dimensions. The typologies come together as components of an integrated, explanatory conceptual model concerning the relationships between the commons, cultural institutions, communities, collective processes (including the role of information and communication technologies) and participatory design within cultural institutions. In the final chapter answers are formulated for the initiating research questions. Also the integrated model developed by the thesis is used as the basis for a proposed analytical tool to assist action towards enhanced community engagement in the development of cultural institutions. Use of the tool is illustrated by application to several examples of collective action encountered during the research.


Benzylamine oxidase (BzAO) activity was assayed in aorta, atria and serum from 20 week old spontaneously hypertensive (SH) rats and Wistar Kyoto (WKY) control rats. Atrial BzAO activity was reduced by 50% in SH rats compared with WKY control. Aorta and serum BzAO activity did not differ significantly between the two groups. Thus, BzAO activity of serum and cardiovascular tissues appears unrelated to pressure-induced changes in connective tissue production.


The spin states of single Mn atoms embedded in InAs quantum dots (QD) were investigated by optical means. In (In,Ga)As, the Mn impurity acts both as acceptor and a magnetic moment. In the low density limit, which is relevant here, the acceptor is in the neutral state A0 with an effective spin J = 1. Using magneto-photoluminescence experiments, we probed the exchange interaction between the dot confined carriers and the Mn spin. Peculiar properties are found such as a large influence of the QD strain field on the acceptor spin states, a ferromagnetic hole-Mn spin coupling and a very small interaction with electrons. The Mn atoms were deposited during the QD growth by molecular beam epitaxy. Although the substrate temperature favored large segregation of the Mn atoms, we could measure a few dots containing single magnetic impurities. The zero-magnetic field exciton of a Mn-doped single dot shows a complex spectrum consisting of two doublets and a singlet. They correspond to the excitonic recombination of electron-hole pairs, affected by the exchange coupling with the Mn magnetic moment in the Jz = ±1, 0 states. The fine structure of each doublet is due to the QD in-plane anisotropy which partially mixes the Jz = ±1 states. The magnetic field dependence exhibits even more striking modifications, with several crossing and anti-crossing again linked to the QD strain field. We developed a model taking into account the spin interactions between the Mn impurity and the carriers in the dot. A very good agreement is found with the experimental data.


Software rarely works as intended while it is being written. Things go wrong in the midst of everyday practice, and developers are commonly understood to form theories and strategies for dealing with them. Errors in this sense are not bugs left behind in software, they are actively encountered and experienced. This paper reports findings of an ethnographicallyinformed study undertaken to examine error encountered at the desk. Films depicting paired open-source development practice over the course of a month were analyzed to identify and delineate instances of active error. Instances were interpreted within a framework of error handling drawn from psychology research. Analyses of representative instances are given and discussed in relation to software engineering research that examines practice at the desk. Findings demonstrate that the significance of active error in software development is personal, shaped by passing time, the emergence of preferred practices and environmental changes. Keywords—empirical studies; software development; software engineering; human error