This paper seeks to map the extent to which civil society actors champion environmental justice in an industrial risk society. It examines the role of civil society actors in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, in being able to perceive industrial risk and push local concerns in development processes. The paper draws on qualitative and empirical research for a local case study in Merebank, South Durban, to explore how civil society engaged to organize and respond to local groundwater contamination caused by the German multinational Bayer, and also influence construction of knowledge around risk. It examines civil society networking to organize collectively and subsequent responses to government and industry during the risk assessment and remediation process. The final section engages in a discussion of findings and draws some conclusions.


Familiarity with the concept and the essence of a paradigm allows for analysing a text and assessing the research intention of its author. In this mode, one can trace the correctness of theoretical and conceptual deduction in publications, the mode of combining paradigms by other researchers, including unauthorised borrowings and interpretations. Such knowledge is also necessary to plan research projects. The text draws attention to the problem of incommensurability of paradigms, errors in their application and difficulties with interpreting publications devoid of paradigmatic declarations. The author of the paper highlights the modes and risks of using several years of theoretical achievements of education and special education.


A major problem of texture analysis is that textures in the real world are often not uniform due to variations in orientation, scale, or other visual appearance. In this paper, affine texture analysis with texel scale-area histogram is presented. A textural image is decomposed into a set of scale images and each scale image consists of square texels of the same size. The scale-area histogram of texel is used as texture feature for multi-scale texture analysis and dominant texture scale analysis. Measurement of the dominant texel sizes of textural images with different rotation angles and spatial scales indicates that rotational and scaled transformations of textural image result in the motion of translation in scale-area histogram.


TO THE EDITOR: We are concerned that conclusions drawn by Robson and colleagues regarding perinatal outcomes in private and public hospital settings perpetuate misinformation about safe birthing options. One of the major limitations of using routine datasets, which the authors acknowledge, is that analyses are only able to control for potential confounders held within those datasets. Because these datasets are not designed for research, they commonly do not contain information on all pertinent indicators. In this case, the inability to control for expected and potential pregnancy complications affecting poor perinatal outcomes means caution is warranted when drawing conclusions about the safety of public versus private intrapartum care. The public hospital system in Australia is designed to cater for women at risk of adverse events in pregnancy and labour, regardless of their health insurance status. Women with known risk factors may opt for public care in a tertiary hospital, where neonatal intensive care facilities are available. Accounting for only a few surrogate markers of social disadvantage is unlikely to control adequately for inequities in these two very different populations. As such, the extent to which the reported odds ratios are a result of differences in the type of care provided in public and private hospitals, or underlying differences in the populations that have not been adjusted for, is unknown. By attending to odds ratios only, Robson and colleagues have missed the opportunity to disseminate information about overall risk across both health sectors. Although statistical models used in their study indicate the risk of perinatal death is three times more likely in public than private hospitals (taking account of caveats already discussed), the population risk of such adverse perinatal outcomes is extremely small regardless of place of birth. When using data from secondary sources, the onus is on researchers to exercise caution in interpretation and dissemination of results, because we know the media won't. "Babies die in public hospitals ..." is just one example of how the general public are fed conclusions based on insubstantial evidence. We cannot foresee any benefit in undermining trust in our public hospital system. There is, however, potential for harm if women perceive they are in a substandard system of care. It is a simplistic assertion by Robson and colleagues that women can use the information presented in their article to make choices about giving birth in either the public or private sector. For many women, there is no choice.


This paper estimates a dynamic oligopoly model to assess the economic consequences of a horizontal merger that took place in 1970 to create the second largest global producer of steel. The paper solves a Markov perfect Nash equilibrium for the model and simulates the welfare effects of the horizontal merger. Estimates reveal that the merger enhanced the production efficiency of the merging party by a magnitude of 4.1 %, while the exercise of market power was restrained primarily by the presence of fringe competitors. Our simulation result also indicates that structural remedies endorsed by the competition authority failed to promote competition. model.


Study Design: Retrospective analysis of 9 cases of C2 schwannomas who were treated microsurgically with hemi-semi-laminectomy approach. Objective: To review the clinical data and describe several operative nuances and pearls from our experience about the hemi-semi-laminectomy approach that provided successful resection of C2 schwannomas. Summary of Background Data: Compared with hemi-laminectomy, the hemi-semi-laminectomy is a more minimally invasive approach for excising spinal neurinomas, which can preserve as much of the mechanically relevant bone structures and facet joints as possible. There are no previous reports about the resection of C2 schwannomas with the hemi-semi-laminectomy approach. Methods: Between June 2006 and February 2011, a consecutive series of 9 patients underwent surgery for C2 schwannomas. All patients were treated microsurgically with a midline posterior hemi-semi-laminectomy approach. Data regarding age, sex, duration and type of symptoms, topographical locations, and surgical results were investigated retrospectively. Results: Of the 9 C2 schwannomas, 8 were located both intradurally and extradurally (dumbbell shaped), and 1 was located extradurally. The initial symptom was numbness of the extremity in 7 patients, neck pain in 1 patient, and clumsiness of the upper extremity in 1 patient. The average duration from initial symptom to surgery was 7.9 months. The average follow-up time was 39.6 months. There were no major surgical complications and tumor recurrence during the follow-up period. Remarkable neurological recovery was observed in 9 patients. Conclusions: The hemi-semi-laminectomy is a more minimally invasive approach that can preserve as much of the mechanically relevant bone structures as possible, so that the integrity of the arch of the atlas and the lamina of C2 can be maintained. This approach can provide sufficient field for the resection of the C2 schwannomas that do not extend to the ventral side of the vertebral artery in the anterolateral direction. The minimally invasive access and the remarkable results associated with this approach make it a valid alternative in selected cases.


Internet connected mobile devices are an increasingly ubiquitous part of our everyday lives and we present here the results from unobtrusive audio-video recordings of iPhone use -- over 100 days of device use collected from 15 users. The data reveals for analysis the everyday, moment-by-moment use of contemporary mobile phones. Through video analysis of usage we observed how messages, social media and internet use are integrated and threaded into daily life, interaction with others, and everyday events such as transport, delays, establishment choice and entertainment. We document various aspects of end-user mobile device usage, starting with understanding how it is occasioned by context. We then characterise the temporal and sequential nature of use. Lastly, we discuss the social nature of mobile phone usage. Beyond this analysis, we reflect on how to draw these points into ideas for design.


During World War II, Iran had a close relationship with the US. In 1952, Britain, the
US and Mohammad Reza Shah planned a coup against Mohammad Mossadeq. They
succeeded to remove Mosaddeq and consequently the relationship improved until
1979. After the Islamic Revolution, Iran-US relationship transformed into hostility.
The initial objective of this study is to discuss the various relevant factors that
influence Iran-US relationship over different periods of time and the reasons of
conflict and hostility between these two countries. The second objective is to explain
the changes of Khatami's foreign policy compared to previous republic of Iran's
presidents, and the process of this evolution during his presidency. The last objective
aims to identify the formal and informal factors that determine Iran's foreign policy
which has not been fully investigated in the literature. Moreover, the detente policy,
dialogue among civilizations and the reasons that Khatami used them for his foreign
policy are explained in detail. Data have been collected from various sources namely
political articles, speeches and media reports on Khatami, Khamenei and other
formal and informal decision makers such as The Guardian Council, Assembly of
Experts, Expediency Council, Friday Prayer Speakers, and Military Leaders as
supplementary sources. Due to sensitivity of this research, the researcher used
speeches that are available from official newspaper archives such as Ettelaat and
Reuters as well as official websites such as www.khamenei.ir and www.khatami.ir.
Articles and books on formal and informal Iranian decision makers and their roles in
foreign policy especially in relationship with the US were used as secondary data to
support primary data gathered from speeches. Qualitative content analysis method is
employed to interpret those data. The finding of this study revealed that Iran's
foreign policy is not only affected by formal powers, but also it is strongly affected
by informal factors. Therefore, these groups interfered in Khatami's foreign policy
and strongly prevented him to develop relationship with US. To achieve this goal,
these groups tried to create tension in both policies, and decreased Khatamis'
political power. Beside these factors, other external factors such as September 11
attacks, labeling Iran as "axis of evil" by George Bush, and United States' attack to
Iraq, led to strengthen Khatamis's opponents in Iran. Furthermore, the finding
revealed that two factors introduced Khatamies' policy, namely Detente and dialogue among civilizations. The reasons for choosing these two criteria as main
component of foreign policy were explained. This study implied that Mohammad
Khatami worked hard to improve Iran's standing among the international
communities and provide the opportunity for Iran to avoid isolation and economic
sanctions against the country. He developed relationship with the European countries
and Persian Gulf States, however, he failed to improve the Iran-US relationship due
to following reasons. Firstly, the US cooperation in the coup against Mohammad
Mosaddeg damages the reputation of the US in Iran, because this coup was
recognized as a setback to Iran's political development and killed any chance for this
country to develop into a democratic society. The Islamic government used the coup
against Mohammad Mosaddeg to energize anti-American attitudes. Secondly, the
hostage crisis which broke off the diplomatic relations between Iran and the US. In
response US imposed serious sanctions against Iran. Thirdly, Iran's foreign policy is
very complicated phenomenon and formal and informal political structures compete
to gain more power, wealth and benefit, as a result these structures interfered in
foreign policy.


A computationally efficient method for calculating near-optimal solutions to the three-objective, linear control allocation problem is disclosed. The control allocation problem is that of distributing the effort of redundant control effectors to achieve some desired set of objectives. The problem is deemed linear if control effectiveness is affine with respect to the individual control effectors. The optimal solution is that which exploits the collective maximum capability of the effectors within their individual physical limits. Computational efficiency is measured by the number of floating-point operations required for solution. The method presented returned optimal solutions in more than 90% of the cases examined; non-optimal solutions returned by the method were typically much less than 1% different from optimal and the errors tended to become smaller than 0.01% as the number of controls was increased. The magnitude of the errors returned by the present method was much smaller than those that resulted from either pseudo inverse or cascaded generalized inverse solutions. The computational complexity of the method presented varied linearly with increasing numbers of controls; the number of required floating point operations increased from 5.5 i, to seven times faster than did the minimum-norm solution (the pseudoinverse), and at about the same rate as did the cascaded generalized inverse solution. The computational requirements of the method presented were much better than that of previously described facet-searching methods which increase in proportion to the square of the number of controls.


Six hundred and twenty-eight insectivorous bats originating from seven provinces were submitted to this Institute for rabies diagnosis between August 1, 1963 and December 31, 1967. Brain tissue was examined by the fluorescent antibody technique and the mouse infectivity test was carried out with brain, salivary gland, interscapular adipose tissue and kidney samples. Rabies virus was detected in 44 bats, 29 of which were from Ontario, 12 from British Columbia and three from Manitoba. Most of the positive cases were diagnosed in summer months. Seven species were represented among the specimens found to be rabid; there were 32 big brown bats, three hoary bats, three silver-haired bats, two little brown bats, one eastern pipistrelle, one Keen myotis and one red bat. Another bat which was not identified also proved to be infected with rabies.


Purpose: This paper investigates the effects of inequality on economic growth in the world using continental approach. Design/methodology: Gini Coefficient and Gross Domestic Products (GDP) per capita were used to measure inequality and economic growth respectively. The study conducted a panel data analysis of the relationship between inequality and economic growth. The data span from 1991-2015. Five countries were selected each from seven continents and were also pooled together to constitute a single panel for 35 countries, thus establishing 8 panels. The Hausman test was conducted to determine whether a random or fixed effect model best fit pooled countries analysis or not. Findings: Findings revealed that for the developing countries, high income inequality retards economic growth while for the developed countries such as Europe countries; the situation seems to be different. European countries as revealed in the findings showed that developed countries have benefited from inequality which has significantly and positively affected their economic growth. The results for Panel II (Asia countries) and Panel III (Europe countries) are in line with the study of Forbes (2000) and Li and Zou (1998) that documented that inequality boosts economic growth. Importantly, we found that inequality positively affects economic growth for Panels/Continents with fixed effect model while inequality negatively affects economic growth for Panels/Continents with random effect model. Research Limitation: The study did not control for each continent differences. For African countries, weak institutional settings and environment is a key factor contributing to high inequality. Originality: The paper was able to know the specific effect of inequality on economic growth in each continent in the World. This documents continents that have benefited from inequality and those that inequality has greatly affected their economies negatively.


Ranking the World: Grading States as a Tool of Global Governance, edited by Alexander Cooley and Jack Snyder, assembles an impressive group of political scientists to critically discuss "the important analytical, normative, and policy issues associated with the contemporary practice of 'grading states.'" The volume addresses a topic of importance to a wide range of political scientists in comparative politics, international relations, and political theory, and raises some fundamental questions about the role of political science at the nexus of theory and practice. We have thus invited a number of colleagues to discuss the volume and its broader implications for political science inquiry.


The article focuses on the study of linguistic (lexico-semantic and grammatical) means of providing the objective information in collective risk situations for Ukraine as well as its immediate neighbors, namely Poland, on two front lines at a time: on the COVID-19 front line, which has been held back for two and a half years, and the Russian-Ukrainian one, which entered its hottest phase on 24 February 2022. The objective of the study is to identify the evolutionary changes of the COVID-19 concept field during three days (23.02.2022 – 25.02.2022) based on the titles of Ukrainian and Polish news media texts in their axiological variability. The analysis of concept space is founded both on the principles of frequency of use of lexemes and word combinations, which reflect the course of events related to the coronavirus pandemic, and on the evaluative division of headlines which have neutral, positive or negative connotations. Methodology. The main methods used in the study are contextual, syntagmatic and component analyses. Contextual analysis has allowed us to determine how and by which linguistic means the concept COVID-19 and its concept field are presented. It has also made it possible to show the linguistic means representing the journalists' desire to convey information to the audience and enabled us to demonstrate the relationship between the nature of linguistic interpretation and the variants of the texts' axiological paradigm. Syntagmatic analysis, i.e. the analysis of left and right word combinability in the media text, has revealed the subject-object relations in presentation of the concept and the degree of saturation of the concept field with metaphorical models based on the axiological principles. Component analysis has unveiled the specific fea-tures of the meaning structure of individual lexical-semantic variants of words. Results. The main results of the study of 111 headlines of Ukrainian (56) and Polish (55) media messages are development of the COVID-19 concept field based on representation of the medical term as a nuclear concept in the subject-object relations within the headline complex and identification of evolutionary (quantitative and qualitative) changes during the above mentioned three-day period. The most important changes are a significant decrease in the number of COVID publications under the influence of extra-lingual factors (the start of active hostilities in Ukraine on 24 February 2022) as well as situational convergence, i.e. contextually induced overlapping of subnuclear zone verbalisers of several concepts in the headlines of the positive segment in both Ukrainian (COVID-19 – ВІЙНА – ДОПОМОГА – АРМІЯ – ЖИТТЯ) and Polish (COVID-19 – WOJNA – POMOC) media space. Conclusions. It has been established that the linguistic means of different evaluative segments of the field have common and distinctive features. The commonality consists in informing the citizens about the course of events, while the difference lies in the ways the evaluative compo-nent of information is conveyed. The lexical and grammatical means are more actively used to actualize their semantic and stylistic potential in the headlines with negative and positive con-tent. The problem of presenting the objective information seems to be multifaceted. In particu-lar, it applies to coverage of the events during a period of active addressing both virtual (ab-stract) and real (concrete) threats. Solving this problem presupposes going beyond linguistics into the realm of psychology, neurolinguistic programming, geopolitical studies, social commu-nication, and other related disciplines.


Objectives To investigate the feasibility, advantages and results of using Left heart atrial and ventricular epicardial pacing to treat paediatric complete atrioventricular block. Methods Eight children diagnosed as complete atrioventrcular block (CAVB) ineffectively treated by drugs received implantation of left heart atrial and ventricular epicardial pacemakers. Temporal or permanent right ventricular pacing were used for all of them before implantation of left heart atrial and ventricular epicardial pacemaker. Pacemaker syndrome appeared in two of them using permanent right ventricular or right atrioventricular pacing, with EF18–25%. Heart failure appeared in one child diagnosed as acute severe myocarditis, whose EF was 47%, she firstly received temporary right ventricular pacing. Left lateral thoracotomy was performed under general anaesthesia at 4th intercostal space, two pacing leads were individually located at left atrial appendage and left ventricular lateral wall. After all the parameters were detected to be satisfactory, a pouch was made at left abdomen under coastal margin. Dual chamber pacemaker was connected with pacing leads through subcutaneous tunnels. Determine left ventricular diastolic diameters (LVDd) and EF before and after implantation of left heart atrial and ventricular epicardial pacemakers, and also during follow up. To summarise the acute and late parameters and working status for pacemaker and PR interval, QTc of electrocardiogram before and after implantation. Results (1) Left heart atrial and ventricular epicardial pacemakers were successfully implanted in all of these patients with no complications associated with surgical procedure. (2) EF of two patients with pacemaker syndrome were prominently improved after implantation (18–25% to 40–54%) and LVDd were significantly decreased (52–55 mm to 46–47 mm). EF increased from 47% to 65% 2 days after implantation for the child diagnosed as acute severe myocarditis with heart failure. (3) acute parameters: threshold for left atrium: 2.2±0.6 V, decreasing to 1.05±0.27 V (p<0.05) 1 month after implantation; threshold for left ventrical:1.3±0.4 V, decreasing to0.63±0.13 V (p<0.05) 1 month after implantation. (4) QRS interval decreased from180±33 ms to 140±24 ms after implantation (p<0.05); (5) AV interval was set at 90 ms, PR interval 124±4 ms. Conclusions Implantation of left heart atrial and ventricular epicardial pacemaker should be regarded as first choice for children diagnosed as complete atrioventricular block for whom endocardial pacemaker could not be implanted. It's advantageous for protecting heart function and avoiding pacemaker syndrome with minimal injury.


The contribution presents the national political activity of the Slovene after-war political emigration, which despite its small number and disunity succeeded in forming numerous, to the regime in homeland opposite, suggestions on future regulation of the state of Slovenia. Regarding the programmes they suggested the emigrants can be divided into two parts: groups that strove for Slovenia in the frame of democratic Yugoslavia, and groups that strove for a sovereign and independent Slovenia. The idea of the latter gained already in the eighties the meaning of the only for the development of the Slovene nation acceptable solution, which later proved in the unified support to independence aspirations of Slovenia


The role of open data intermediaries in an ecosystem broadly, and in the data chain specifically, is highly relevant – they may in fact be vital for a data chain to be fluid. There is a small but growing body of empirical-based research that analyzes the behaviour of open data intermediaries; empirical evidence that specifically focuses on the entrance of open data intermediaries into the ecosystem is even scarcer. The present study aims to reduce the scarcity of empirical fine-grained evidence concerning open data intermediaries and their emergence, in particular, their characteristics that enable them to enter into an ecosystem and to thrive in it. The analysis of the behavior of the two intermediaries located at the interface of open data in the agricultural and mobile-phone sectors in Ghana leads to the following conclusions: the emergence of intermediaries is primarily conditioned by the previous presence of a (broad) niche area, that is, in for order intermediaries to appear, there must be new spaces available in the ecosystem for them to occupy; a niche may be sufficiently broad to accommodate not a single specific intermediary but rather a range of similar yet distinct intermediaries that can populate different zones within the niche; each intermediary deploys the forms of the capital differently to connect to users successfully; given the extent of capitals which it possesses, each intermediary identifies a different area of the ecosystem where this capital would assure the highest return; a deficiency of certain forms of capital can also be appeased by linking to other intermediaries; the emergence and subsequent survival of the intermediaries importantly modifies the ecosystem which they have entered and populated; and open data intermediaries enhance flow of data in an ecosystem by sourcing, creating, mixing and curating data from multiple sources, both open and closed.


OBJECTIVE
To identify and assess the impact of postoperative complications in patients with unrecognized or known obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) undergoing hip replacement or knee replacement compared with control patients undergoing similar operations. Although OSAS is a risk factor for perioperative morbidity, data quantifying the magnitude of the problem in patients undergoing non-upper airway operations are limited.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
This retrospective, case-control study from a single academic medical institution included patients diagnosed as having OSAS between January 1995 and December 1998 and undergoing hip or knee replacement within 3 years before or anytime after their OSAS diagnosis. Patients with OSAS were subcategorized as having the diagnosis either before or after the surgery and also, regardless of time of diagnosis, by whether they were using continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) prior to hospitalization. Matched controls were patients without OSAS undergoing the same operation. Interventions were defined specifically as administration of a particular treatment in the context of each complication, eg, supplemental oxygen, implementation of additional monitoring such as oximetry for hypoxemia, or transfer to the intensive care unit (ICU) for cardiac ischemia concerns. Postoperative complications were assessed for all patients in the different categories and included respiratory events such as hypoxemia, acute hypercapnia, and episodes of delirium. Serious complications were noted separately, including unplanned ICU days, reintubations, and cardiac events. The length of hospital stay was also tabulated.

RESULTS
There were 101 patients with the diagnosis of OSAS in this study and 101 matched controls. Thirty-six patients had their joint replacement before OSAS was diagnosed, and 65 had surgery after OSAS was diagnosed. Of the latter 65 patients, only 33 were using CPAP at home preoperatively. Complications were noted in 39 patients (39%) in the OSAS group and 18 patients (18%) in the control group (P=.001). Serious complications occurred in 24 patients (24%) in the OSAS group compared with 9 patients (9%) in the control group (P=.004). Hospital stay was significantly longer for the OSAS patients at a mean +/- SD of 6.8 +/- 2.8 days compared with 5.1 +/- 4.1 days for the control patients (P<.007).

CONCLUSION
Adverse postoperative outcomes occurred at a higher rate in patients with a diagnosis of OSAS undergoing hip or knee replacement compared with a group of matched control patients.


We report a new type of migraine associated epileptic syndrome in a family: adult onset myoclonic epilepsy with benign course and migraine. Affected members of the family had myoclonic and rare generalised tonic-clonic seizures. Most of the patients, but not all, had a history of migraine. Also, some cases of the family had only migraine. This family will be discussed because of two distinct features. Firstly, in this family a different type of epilepsy, adult onset myoclonic epilepsy was diagnosed that has not been classified in the ILAE 1989, classification(s), but was similar to that previously reported in Japanese families. Secondly, in most of the cases migraine was associated with the epilepsy.


The function of cities in the knowledge economy and the concept of creative cities has been elaborated on in the literature. It has been maintained that local policymakers can play a part in preparing cities for the knowledge economy. The literature however glances over how this is carried out, and how it relates to city branding and international positioning. The aim of the present study is to elaborate on how cities in the knowledge economy are marketed and branded making use of notions like innovation and sustainability. The Chinese mega-cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen are focused on in a multiple case study. The main elements in the case studies of these three cities are semi-structured interviews, observations, documentation and netnography. Chinese mega-cities – and Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen in particular – are interesting to focus on because they are central in China's creation of, and move towards, a knowledge economy (e.g. through science-based innovation). These three cities moreover increasingly engage in city branding and international positioning, and integrate the notions of innovation and sustainability in their city branding practices. The study shows how three Chinese mega-cities make use of the notions of innovation and sustainability, in line with theirs and China's move towards becoming a knowledge economy. The study contributes to the city branding literature, and offer insights to city managers and other practitioners involved in the development and branding of cities and places.


Graph connection Laplacian (GCL) is a modern data analysis technique that is starting to be applied for the analysis of high dimensional and massive datasets. Motivated by this technique, we study matrices that are akin to the ones appearing in the null case of GCL, i.e the case where there is no structure in the dataset under investigation. Developing this understanding is important in making sense of the output of the algorithms based on GCL. We hence develop a theory explaining the behavior of the spectral distribution of a large class of random matrices, in particular random matrices with random block entries of fixed size. Part of the theory covers the case where there is significant dependence between the blocks. Numerical work shows that the agreement between our theoretical predictions and numerical simulations is generally very good.


This paper builds on previous research from an EA used to predict secondary structure of RNA molecules. The EA predicts which specific canonical base pairs forms hydrogen bonds and helices. Three new thermodynamic models were integrated into our EA. The first based on a modification to our original base pair model. The last two, INN and INN-HB, add stacking-energies using base pair adjacencies. We have tested RNA sequences of lengths 122, 543, and 1494 nucleotides on a wide variety of operators and parameters settings. The accuracy of the predicted structures is compared to the known structures thus demonstrating the benefits of using stacking-energies in structure prediction. Some other improvements to our EA are also discussed.


Smoothly curving, spiral-shaped inclusion trails may form in porphyroblasts during the overprinting of near-orthogonal foliations in schists that are relatively quartz rich and, in general, graphite poor. The smooth curvature results from the combined effects of (1) the protection from progressive shearing provided by projecting crystal faces and (2) greater competency and generally wider zones of progressive shearing in these rock types than in ones that are less quartz rich and more graphtic. Therefore, lack of truncations or abrupt changes in compositional zoning profiles and the presence of smoothly curving, spiral-shaped inclusion trails do not necessarily signify that the porphyroblast containing them rotated as it grew. This has considerable significance for shear-sense determinations in deformed and metamorphosed rocks.


Introduction: Root biomodifying agents are adjuncts to periodontal regeneration. Aim: This study evaluates the demineralization effect of a chelating agent, maleic acid (MA) when used as a root biomodifier on the cemental surface. Materials and Methods: Thirty single-rooted anterior teeth were selected for this study. The teeth were decoronated and split longitudinally to form sixty radicular halves. They were randomly assigned to four groups of 15 fragments each according to the demineralizing agents used and treatment time of 1 and 3 min. Group 1 treated with 50% citric acid (CA) solution at pH 1, Group 2 treated with 17% ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) solution at pH 7. Group 3 treated with 7% MA at pH 1.3 and Group 4 treated with saline. The specimens were then prepared to view under scanning electron microscopy (SEM). To study the adherence of cells on the root surface, human periodontal ligament cells were cultured and were placed in plates containing root halves, and cell adherence was viewed using SEM. The data were statistically analyzed by Pearson's Chi-square test (χ2) to evaluate the effect of the each test agent. A significance level was set at P< 0.05. Results: All the three test agents were successful in eliminating smear layer at both time intervals. Intergroup comparison at both time intervals demonstrated, MA to have a better smear layer removal ability than CA and EDTA. Conclusion: This particular study provided preliminary evidence on the demineralizing effect of 7% MA when used as a root conditioning agent.


Law enforcement agencies need to model spatio-temporal patterns of criminal incidents. With well developed models, they can study the causality of crimes and predict future criminal incidents, and they can use the results to help prevent crimes. In this paper, we described our newly developed spatio-temporal generalized additive model (S-T GAM) to discover underlying factors related to crimes and predict future incidents. The model can fully utilize many different types of data, such as spatial, temporal, geographic, and demographic data, to make predictions. We efficiently estimated the parameters for S-T GAM using iteratively re-weighted least squares and maximum likelihood and the resulting estimates provided for model interpretability. In this paper we showed the evaluation of S-T GAM with the actual criminal incident data from Charlottesville, Virginia. The evaluation results showed that S-T GAM outperformed the previous spatial prediction models in predicting future criminal incidents.


With popular television shows and films focusing on the issue of sex trafficking, many discursive constructions of the issue allow for a "script" to be followed and replicated in many anti-trafficking discourses. Ultimately, the constructions of the issue become a basis of understanding on sex trafficking, which can consequentially limit the availability and accuracy of anti-trafficking resources. From examining popular discourses and their construction of sex trafficking on a global and U.S. scale, to creating an educational program designed for college-level courses on the realities of trafficking, this project focuses on de-bunking the myths of sex trafficking on a local level. By using a framework of applied communication and social justice with a Transnational Feminist lens, this creative thesis project examined the ways in which students in select courses at Eastern Illinois University understood sex traffic_,king prior to the educational program, as well as after the presentations. 3 BREAKING THE CHAINS OF TRAFFICKING: AN EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM


In the following paper I discuss the perception of EU-ropeanization among the youth from the new European countries (the cases of Romania and Poland) and the margins of Europe (the case of Georgia). Based on my recent cross-cultural qualitative research, namely, the in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with Georgian, Romanian and Polish youth, I aim to illustrate how the EU-ropeanization discourses uphold the ambivalent identities promoting the construction of certain reality, in which the young people constantly negotiate between the EU-ropeanizing forces and the national. The abovementioned ambivalence is reflected in the youth narratives on the impact of the EU normative standards on their societies that tend to both regulate and confuse everyday life and of the EU-ropeanizing trends on the local traditions that tend to both encourage inventing "specificity"and endanger traditional practices. The positive outcomes of the EU integration as seen by the youth from the new European countries are both the ease of crossing the borders with new opportunities to study and work and the EU projects supporting the development of local economies and infrastructure. However, they stress that both the former and the latter have their side effects as the implementation of certain EU regulations might represent a mere performance/spectacle, while crossing the borders might produce a nation-wide "failure discourse" as a result of negative stigmatization by a recipient society. The discourses of the youth from the margins of Europe being willing to join the EU (Georgia) do resonate with the ones of their counterparts from the new European countries (Romania and Poland).


Patel A., Shah N. (2014): Potentials of probiotics in the treatment of food allergy – a review. Czech J. Food Sci., 32: 205–212. Food allergy is an adverse immune response to some proteins in some foods. Probiotic, health promoting bacteria have gained much importance because of their innumerable benefits, particularly in the treatment of diarrhea, hy percholesterolemia, atopic dermatitis, eczema, and gastrointestinal disorders by strengthening the immune system. The current paper reviews recent advances made in the treatment of food allergy through employing probiotic or synbiotic therapy. The results of several reports are very promising suggesting p robiotics can influence the immune system to curtail the allergic responses.


The increased availability of massive point clouds coupled with their utility in a wide variety of applications such as robotics, shape synthesis, and self-driving cars has attracted increased attention from both industry and academia. Recently, deep neural networks operating on labeled point clouds have shown promising results on supervised learning tasks like classification and segmentation. However, supervised learning leads to the cumbersome task of annotating the point clouds. To combat this problem, we propose two novel self-supervised pre-training tasks that encode a hierarchical partitioning of the point clouds using a cover-tree, where point cloud subsets lie within balls of varying radii at each level of the cover-tree. Furthermore, our self-supervised learning network is restricted to pre-train on the support set (comprising of scarce training examples) used to train the downstream network in a few-shot learning (FSL) setting. Finally, the fully-trained self-supervised network's point embeddings are input to the downstream task's network. We present a comprehensive empirical evaluation of our method on both downstream classification and segmentation tasks and show that supervised methods pre-trained with our self-supervised learning method significantly improve the accuracy of state-of-the-art methods. Additionally, our method also outperforms previous unsupervised methods in downstream classification tasks.


of a Capstone Project Submitted to the Graduate School and the Department of Advanced Practice at The University of Southern Mississippi in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Nursing Practice


BACKGROUND/AIMS
There is increasing interest in noninvasive tests for the assessment of Helicobacter pylori infection, and urine-based tests have been widely used as noninvasive tests to detect Helicobacter pylori infection. The aim of this study was to evaluate the adaptation and usefulness of urine antibody enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and urine card tests in the clinical setting to detect anti-Helicobacter pylori IgG antibody excreted into urine in Turkish adult patients with dyspepsia.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
One-hundred twenty-four patients who were admitted and referred for upper endoscopy to Dokuz Eylül University Hospital, Gastroenterology Clinic were studied. Antrum and corpus biopsies were taken, and Helicobacter pylori status was defined in the presence of at least two positive results of rapid urease test, histopathology and culture. Urine and serum specimens of 124 patients were collected and examined for anti-Helicobacter pylori IgG antibody by URINELISA, RAPIRUN (Otsuka Pharmaceutical, Tokyo, Japan) and anti-Helicobacter pylori enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (Euroimmun, Lübeck, Germany) tests, respectively.

RESULTS
Helicobacter pylori infection was positive in 82 (66.1%) patients according to the gold standard methods. Among 82 Helicobacter pylori infection-positive patients, 69 patients were positive by both URINELISA and RAPIRUN; 109 of 124 patients were positive by anti-Helicobacter pylori IgG enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The sensitivity and specificity of URINELISA, RAPIRUN and anti-Helicobacter pylori IgG enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay were 74.4%, 73.2%, 100% and 81.0%, 78.6%, 35.7%, respectively. However, the urine antibody test cut-off values were searched for the best concordance with the results of gold standard methods. This yielded that the sensitivity and specificity of URINELISA with our new cut-off value (0.530) were 90.2% and 71.4%, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS
As a first study among Turkish adult patients with dyspepsia, the efficacy of URINELISA was related with the determination of a new cut-off value for pretreatment as a screening test value. We suggest that the cut-off value of the URINELISA test should be evaluated and considered for each patient group and each country. The URINELISA (OD 0.530) and RAPIRUN tests were found useful for the diagnosis of Helicobacter pylori infection in our patients with dyspepsia.


The mechanisms that govern the assembly of nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) remain largely unknown. Here, we have established a role for karyopherins in this process. We show that the yeast karyopherin Kap121p functions in the targeting and assembly of the nucleoporin Nup53p into NPCs by recognizing a nuclear localization signal (NLS) in Nup53p. This karyopherin-mediated function can also be performed by the Kap95p–Kap60p complex if the Kap121p-binding domain of Nup53p is replaced by a classical NLS, suggesting a more general role for karyopherins in NPC assembly. At the NPC, neighboring nucleoporins bind to two regions in Nup53p. One nucleoporin, Nup170p, associates with a region of Nup53p that overlaps with the Kap121p binding site and we show that they compete for binding to Nup53p. We propose that once targeted to the NPC, dissociation of the Kap121p–Nup53p complex is driven by the interaction of Nup53p with Nup170p. At the NPC, Nup53p exists in two separate complexes, one of which is capable of interacting with Kap121p and another that is bound to Nup170p. We propose that fluctuations between these two states drive the binding and release of Kap121p from Nup53p, thus facilitating Kap121p's movement through the NPC.


The ability to predict net carbon exchange and production of vegetation in response to predicted atmospheric and climate change is critical to assessing the potential impacts of these changes. Mathematical models provide an important tool in the study of whole plant, canopy and ecosystem responses to global environmental change. Because this requires prediction beyond experience, mechanistic rather than empirical models are needed. The uniformity and strong understanding of the photosynthetic process, which is the primary point of response of plant production to global atmospheric change, provides a basis for such an approach. Existing modelling systems have been developed primarily for expert modellers and have not been easily accessible to experimentalists, managers and students. Here we describe a modular modelling system operating within Windows to provide this access. WIMOVAC (Windows Intuitive Model of Vegetation response to Atmosphere and Climate Change) is designed to facilitate the modelling of various aspects of plant photosynthesis with particular emphasis on the effects of global climate change. WIMOVAC has been designed to run on IBM PC-compatible computers running Microsoft Windows. The package allows the sophisticated control of the simulation processes for photosynthesis through a standardized Windows user interface and provides automatically formatted results as either tabulated data or as a range of customizable graphs. WIMOVAC has been written in Microsoft Visual Basic, to facilitate the rapid development of user-friendly modules within the familiar Windows framework, while allowing a structured development. The highly interactive nature of controls adopted by WIMOVAC makes it suitable for research, management and educational purposes.


Abstract STM images of hematite (α-Fe2O3) (001) surfaces taken under a wider variety of conditions than in previous studies are presented. The results strongly suggest that only Fe sites contribute to the tunneling current. Specifically, corrugated unit-cell structures expected of the Fe sublattice are observed under both occupied- and unoccupied-states imaging conditions. A pattern of apparent vacancies was observed under conditions previously attributed to oxygen states; this is most simply interpreted either as Fe vacancies, or Fe sites whose electronic structure has been altered by a (unknown) coordinating anion, but difficult to explain as the oxygen sublattice. For unoccupied states imaging, decreasing the tip-sample distance (increasing the tunneling current) results in an image change from only one site per unit cell to three sites per unit cell. This is also relatively easy to explain using the Fe sublattice, but difficult to explain using the oxygen sublattice. These results are modeled using resonant tunneling theory, which shows that changes in bias voltage, tunneling medium, and tip-sample distance can have the observed effects only if Fe atoms are being imaged. The results have implications for modeling electron transfer across mineral-water interfaces more generally because they provide a framework for understanding site-specific electron transfer kinetic parameters.


In this paper, an image encryption technique using singular value decomposition (SVD) and discrete cosine Stockwell transform (DCST) is proposed. The original source image is encrypted using bands of DCST along with the SVD decomposed images. The number of bands in DCST, parameters used to mask the singular values, the way of permutation used to shuffle the values of SVD transformed images and the way of arrangement of SVD matrices are used as encryption keys. It is necessary to have correct knowledge of all the keys along with their respective values, for correct decryption of encrypted images. The robustness and the quality measurement of proposed work are analyzed by comparing it with some existing works.


Teachers are often the targets of bullies. Studies have indicated that South African teachers are three times more likely to experience workplace bullying than their peers in other parts of the world. In an earlier study by the authors, 90.8 per cent of educators who took part in a survey indicated that they experience some form of bullying while at work. Compared to this, similar studies found the levels to be much lower: 25.6 per cent in Lithuania and 22.4 per cent in Croatia. Workplace bullying of teachers includes being bullied by other teachers, school managers, learners and the administrative staff at the school. While the vast majority of schools have adopted an anti-bullying policy for the learners, even if only on paper, no clear guidelines exist on teacher-targeted workplace bullying. Teachers are central to any education system. Research shows that workplace bullying negatively affects the teachers and the school. Thus, policies should be put in place to protect employees and effectively deal with incidences. Policies with clear guidelines and procedures for role players should be in line with the legislative framework. We start by giving a synopsis of the current literature on teacher-targeted workplace bullying. We then discuss the South African legal framework that informs the suggested policy development. Thirdly, we draw from the literature on bullying prevention. This will serve as an information base from which national, provincial and school policies can be developed.


Sclerostin is a potent inhibitor of bone formation but has been shown to correlate positively with areal bone mineral density (aBMD). Little is known about its relationship to parameters of bone strength and volumetric BMD (vBMD) as measured by peripheral quantitative computed tomography (pQCT). We measured both serum sclerostin and parameters of tibial bone size and strength by pQCT to characterize this relationship. Our study population consisted of 223 white and 35 African American women (mean age 87 years) from the Study of Osteoporotic Fractures (SOF) cohort, who had usable pQCT scans of the tibia at sites 4% (T4%), 33% (T33%), and 66% (T66%) from the ankle. Analysis of covariance was used to test for differences in age‐adjusted means of aBMD, pQCT variables, and serum biomarkers across sclerostin quartiles. African American women had significantly lower median sclerostin (34.3 pmol/L) than white women (48.5 pmol/L) (p = 0.05). Women in the highest sclerostin quartile had 7% to 14.5% higher hip aBMD and pQCT parameters of vBMD and bone size than those in the lowest quartile in multivariate models adjusting for age, race, weight, height, and diabetes status. The association of sclerostin with parameters of bone strength differed dramatically between T33% and T66% sites. At T66%, women in the highest sclerostin quartile had pQCT strength parameters 9.4% to 15.3% greater than the lowest quartile, whereas no trend was found for the T33% site. Our results suggest paradoxical associations between circulating sclerostin and bone size, density, and strength.


Many chemicals are known to be, or have been implicated as, contact allergens, and allergic contact dermatitis is an important occupational and environmental health issue. It is the responsibility of toxicologists to identify those chemicals that have the potential to induce skin sensitisation, and to assess the conditions under which there will exist a risk to human health. This article describes progress that has been made in the development of new approaches to the toxicological evaluation of skin sensitisation, and the benefits to animal welfare that such developments have already produced, and are likely to produce in the future. In this context, the local lymph node assay is described with regard to hazard identification and risk assessment, and possible strategies for the development of in vitro approaches to safety assessment are discussed.


A visual identification system for planar shapes based on the elliptic features is presented. The edge detection results in a list of run codes, which contain the edge information. The connectivity analysis then obtains the edge points in consecutive order. Three sets of invariants are computed from the elliptic Fourier features and used for recognition. Location and orientation are also computed from elliptic Fourier coefficients.


We describe a 49-year-old white man with sympathetic ophthalmia following contact neodymium-YAG laser cyclotherapy. There was no invasive surgery, and no perforating injuries preceded cyclodestructive therapy. The eye had hemorrhagic secondary glaucoma due to Coats' disease. It was treated three times with contact cyclophotocoagulation after cyclocryotherapy failed to lower intraocular pressure. Subsequently, the intraocular pressure slowly decreased and the eye became phthisical 15 months after the last surgery. Intraocular inflammation developed in the fellow eye and sympathetic ophthalmia was suspected. Histologic and immunohistologic study of the enucleated blind eye confirmed this diagnosis.


Studies indicate that proteins of hepatitis C virus (HCV) disturb expression of cell-cycle-related proteins. A disturbed cell-cycle control is a hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) risk factor in patients with HCV-related liver damage. The present study aimed to analyse the cellular expression of p21/Wafl/Cipl (p21) in long-lasting chronic hepatitis C (CH-C), its correlation with the key oncogenic HCV proteins (C, NS3, NS5A), other cell-cycle-related proteins (PCNA, Ki-67, cyclin D1, p53) and selected clinical data. Archival liver biopsies, obtained from patients with CH-C, normal livers, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) specimens were analysed by immunocytochemistry and ImmunoMax technique. In CH-C overexpression of p21 protein was demonstrated. Positive correlations of p21 protein expression in CH-C involved age of the patients, grading, and liver steatosis. Moreover, expression of p21 correlated significantly with expression of p53 protein, of D1 cyclin and Ki-67. Although Ki-67 antigen was related to p21 expression, only Ki-67 expression proved to be directly related to liver staging. Expression of the NS3 protein, which prevailed in CH-C patients, manifested correlation with p21 expression, and that of cyclin D1. In presence of preserved potential for regeneration, overexpression of p21 indicates inhibition of cell cycle in hepatocytes, which probably plays a protective role for the chronically damaged cells. Out of the three HCV proteins only NS3 seems to affect control of p21 protein expression in in vivo infection. Nevertheless, the studies indicate that neither expression of p21 protein nor that of viral NS3 protein can serve as a marker of progression of CH-C to HCC in vivo.


Self-similarity in general relativity is briefly reviewed and the differences between self-similarity of the first kind (which can be obtained from dimensional considerations and is invariantly characterized by the existence of a homothetic vector in perfect-fluid spacetimes) and generalized self-similarity are discussed. The covariant notion of a kinematic self-similarity in the context of relativistic fluid mechanics is defined. It has been argued that kinematic self-similarity is an appropriate generalization of homothety and is the natural relativistic counterpart of self-similarity of the more general second (and zeroth) kind. Various mathematical and physical properties of spacetimes admitting a kinematic self-similarity are discussed. The governing equations for perfect-fluid cosmological models are introduced and a set of integrability conditions for the existence of a proper kinematic self-similarity in these models is derived. Exact solutions of the irrotational perfect-fluid Einstein field equations admitting a kinematic self-similarity are then sought in a number of special cases, and it is found that: (i) in the geodesic case the 3-spaces orthogonal to the fluid velocity vector are necessarily Ricci-flat; (ii) in the further specialization to dust (i.e. zero pressure) the differential equation governing the expansion can be completely integrated and the asymptotic properties of these solutions can be determined; (iii) the solutions in the case of zero expansion consist of a class of shear-free and static models and a class of stiff perfect-fluid (and non-static) models; and (iv) solutions in which the kinematic self-similar vector is parallel to the fluid velocity vector are necessarily Friedmann - Robertson - Walker (FRW) models. Solutions in which the kinematic self-similarity is orthogonal to the velocity vector are also considered. In addition, the existence of kinematic self-similarities in FRW spacetimes is comprehensively studied. It is known that there are a variety of circumstances in general relativity in which self-similar models act as asymptotic states of more general models. Finally, the questions of under what conditions are models which admit a proper kinematic self-similarity asymptotic to an exact homothetic solution and under what conditions are the asymptotic states of cosmological models represented by exact solutions of Einstein's field equations which admit a generalized self-similarity are addressed.


Rapid growth of telecommunications in India has been creating opportunities for many players from Asia, Europe and other parts of world. Relative assessment of efficiencies can be used to enhance productivity and competitiveness. In this study an attempt is made to evaluate competitiveness of the telecom industry in India focusing on the efficiency. Input oriented data envelopment analysis is used to measure the relative technical and scale efficiencies of 10 service providers. Further, using output oriented model, the efficiency analysis is extended to 23 service circle areas. From the analysis performed on service providers the technically and scale efficient firms were identified. Technical and scale efficiency were assessed at circle level also. The findings confirm some assumptions and hint at several competitiveness implications for leadership in firms and government.


[I]f it were really like Othello nobody could understand it, however new it might be. And if it were new, it couldn't possibly be like Othello. --Aldous Huxley, Brave New World The most detestable habit in all modern cinema is the homage. I don't want to see another goddamn homage in anybody's movie. There are enough of them which are unconscious. --Orson Welles, at the Cinematheque francaise Orson Welles's Touch of Evil (1958) bears marks of a dense, knotty relationship to William Shakespeare's Othello, (2) a relationship that has until now been overlooked (and, in my experience), sometimes denied with surprising vehemence). The connection is pervasive yet indirect, and I approximate this indirection structurally through the form of my essay--just as Shakespeare provides a buried foundation for Welles's film, evocative quotations from the play are confined by design to my footnotes, thereby offering a running dialogue with the body of the argument (endnotes are largely reserved for explanatory digressions). (i) This creates an admittedly demanding reading experience, which (I hope) emulates the kind of conversation Welles himself was having with Shakespeare. The excessive length of this essay and its discursive annotations manifest my desire to establish definitively this hitherto unrecognized relationship between film and play. I err on the side of over-stating the case (making an argument by accumulation, as it were) in part because the evidence for my initially intuitive linkage remains profoundly circumstantial. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of Touch of Evil's engagement with Othello is how insistently the film displaces its allegiance to its predecessor--making this connection all the more difficult to pin down. Most likely much of our continued inability to recognize Othello in Touch of Evil rests in this sophisticated displacement. Critics have only recently--and only fleetingly, never at length--begun to notice even the mere "whisper of Desdemona and the Moor in the thwarting of this modern couple" (Lane 146). (3) In the final pages of the essay, I conjecture that the racial displacement enacted by Welles--put bluntly, creating an American Othello without a 'black' Othello--serves as a more unsettling cause for our continued disacknowledgement of his evocation of Shakespeare. Looking awry, I begin by contemplating an Othello-derived trifle (i) in a more contemporary production. The play is invoked at a crucial juncture in the recent remake of The Manchurian Candidate (2004). This moment occurs when the African-American soldier Bennett Marco (Denzel Washington) discovers (or rather, believes he discovers) that he cannot trust the woman in whom he has been confiding. In her bathroom, he notices a surveillance camera hidden above him behind a ventilation grate. In fury, he searches through her purse, finding, among other evidence, not Iagoesque money but rather audiotapes of their confessional conversations. His faith in her shattered, he flees her apartment. Immediately before noticing this camera, we catch sight of an object in the mirror, a reversed image from the wall behind him, an image that we never see in its proper perspective. It is a poster from Paul Robeson's Othello--most likely his highly successful 1943 Broadway production (see fig. 1). [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] How much are we to make of such a glimpse at such a moment? Should we simply dismiss it as a chance gesture, just another poster in an apartment full of theatrical posters? By recognizing this fleeting image, are we falling into the painfully American trap of identifying black male actors with Othello? Or is it fair to read significance into this glance, as if the film were saying: "of course you (anamorphically) envision Othello standing behind this moment, just as you were so quick to see him behind O. J. Simpson and other black figures under state scrutiny." Even if the mirror image cannily inverts our insistence on Othello's theatrical past, we are still left wondering how we should take into account these observations--that Marco has been tortured on an island (which, with its decayed arabesque structures, could very well be a former Mediterranean outpost) by a malign character who manages to 'get inside his head'; that Marco later bursts in upon this same woman and, furiously unable to recall her name ("Susie, Rode, whatever the hell your name is"), nearly strangles her while demanding the truth of her; that Washington and Meryl Streep, who also stars in the film, were once invited by Joseph Papp to be cast as Othello and Desdemona; that, when discussing his role of Malcolm X, another figure under heavy observation, Washington pondered that "perhaps there could be" a "correlation there between Othello and Malcolm X" (Lee 117); that in interviews Washington has consistently answered the query about his fidelity to the original Manchurian Candidate with variations on this response: "To me any good piece of material like Shakespeare ought to be open to reinterpretation. …


Identification of organic materials, which can enrich the soil organic matter pool and improve the productivity of marginal lands, is a necessity in tropical countries. A study was conducted to comprehend the effect of organic materials of different quality on the soil carbon (C) pool size and N, P, K release from soil. Organic amendments (OA) with different complexities namely, cattle manure (CM), cattle manure-rice straw (CR), cattle manure-wood shavings (CW), and cattle manure-rice straw-wood shavings (CRW) mixtures as fresh (f) or incubated for two months (i), were used in a leaching column study, soil incubation experiment and greenhouse experiment using maize (Zea mays L.) as the test plant. The N, P and K release pattern from soil, soil organic matter content and biomass of maize in OA added soils compared to fertilizer-only (SF) and soil-only (S) treatments were determined. The nitrogen release and microbial activity were higher in fresh-OA added soils compared to other treatments. Phosphorous and K were higher in soils amended with incubated-OA than fresh-OA. The highest N, P and K release was obtained with CM-i, CRW- i and CM-f, respectively. Shoot biomass of maize was enhanced by 20-40% with the application of incubated-OA compared to SF. The total soil organic C and active organic C ranged from 10.85 to 13.50 g/kg and 0.31 to 0.64 g/kg, respectively, with soils treated with OA showing significantly high values compared to the control. The organic amendments used as fresh or incubated materials, did not impede plant growth and generally maintained or improved the soil nutrient status and C pool. Incubating OA prior to application improved the nutrient availability in soil.


The Methuen Drama Handbook of Theatre History and Historiography offers an authoritative guide to contemporary debates and practices in this field. The book covers the key themes and methods that are current in theatre history research, with a particular focus on expanding the object of study to include engagement with theatre and performance practices and the development of theatre histories around the world. Central to the book are eighteen specially commissioned essays by established and emerging scholars from a wide range of international contexts, whose discussion of individual case studies is predicated on their understanding and experience of their 'local' landscape of theatre history. These essays reveal where important work continues to be done in the field and, most valuably, draws on academic contexts beyond the Western academy to expand our knowledge of the exciting directions that such an approach opens up. Prefaced by an introduction tracing the development of the discipline of theatre history and changing historiographical approaches, the Handbook explores current issues pertaining to theatre and performance history research, as well as providing up to date and robust introductions to the methods and historiographic questions being explored by researchers in the field.

Featuring a series of essential research tools, including a detailed list of resources and an annotated bibliography of key texts, this is an indispensable scholarly handbook for anyone working in theatre and performance history and historiography.


Background: OSA is associated with an increased prevalence of coronary artery disease, heart failure and rhythm disturbance. Also, P-wave dispersion (Pd) reflects inhomogeneous atrial depolarization secondary to insults such as chronically elevated atrial pressure, ischemia, or meta- bolic stress that promote atrial structure remodeling and provide a substrate for atrial fibrillation. We aimed to investigate Pd in patients with OSA and to determine if there is any relationship with severity of the disease. Patients and methods: This study was conducted in Chest & Cardiology Departments, Assuit University Hospital, Egypt on 40 OSA patients (29 males and 11 females), and 20 healthy controls. We excluded patients with COPD and any diagnosed cardiac disease. For every patient, we did a polysomnography and ECG. Results: Pd was significantly more in OSA (98.50 ± 4.77 m/s) than controls (72.00 ± 3.37 m/s) (p value <0.05). Pd in severe, moderate and mild OSA were 111.43 ± 5.62 m/s, 95.00 ± 7.83 m/s and 65.71 ± 8.41 m/s, respectively with a significant positive correlation with severity of OSA. Mul- tiple linear regression shows that systolic blood pressure and BMI are independently associated with Pd (b = 0.56, p = 0.00) (b = 0.27, p = 0.05). Conclusion: Pd is increased and correlated with severity of OSA. Systolic blood pressure and BMI are independent risk factors for Pd. Follow up of patients to detect clinical implications is rec- ommended.


People begin the sleep cycle with a period of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, followed by a very short period of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. During a normal night of sleep, humans usually experience about four or five periods of REM sleep. Penile erections have generally been considered to be an epiphenomenon of REM sleep-related physiological changes for healthy males. Thus, men are very likely to awaken in the morning with a REM sleep-related erection, which is also known as nocturnal penile tumescence (NPT). Men who are physically under great strain or serious psychological stress may find it difficult to maintain a psychogenic erection. The best time for them to have sex would be during sleep time, such as when they are experiencing REM sleep-related erections. It is reasonable to assume that the NPT phenomena might have evolved as a tool for having sex, in the context of both procreation and recreation.


Wideband (UWB) radio is gaining increasing attention thanks to its attractive features that include low-power low-complexity base band operation and ample multipath diversity. In another side using system C for implementing systems on a chip has a lot of advantages. The goal of this paper is to implement a proper algorithm for DS_UWB timing acquisition in system C. In this paper we implement an algorithm for a direct sequence ultra wideband receiver with single user and we use IEEE standard channel model, therefore interference such as MUI and ISI are present. In this design data rate, chip rate and sampling rate are about 110Mb/s, 660Mchip/s and 4GS/s that are proper for DS_UWB and also the achieved BER is acceptable.


The paper studies a new polynomial representation of Multi Output Functions (MOFs). The new representation, called GITE-polynomials, is based on a newly introduced Generalized If-Then-Else (GITE) function. Being a compact form of representation of MOFs, the GITE-polynomials allow efficient manipulation with a set of functions. The paper introduces algebra of GITE-polynomials. Properties of this algebra are used for solving the MOF-decomposition problem. The solution provides a compact representation of MOFs.


"Background: In the last decades, there has been a growing interest in studying the effects of spirituality/religiosity on health. Many studies concluded that spirituality/religiosity has a beneficial effect on mental and physical health. To study these effects, validated instruments for measuring spirituality are needed. A good example of a largely used instrument is the Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale (DSES). The current study sought to examine the psychometric properties of Romanian version of DSES. Method: Exploratory Factor Analysis and Principal Components Analysis were used to confirm the construct validity of the scale. The internal consistency of the scale was determined using Cronbach's alpha. Results: 70 patients with a diagnosis of depression and 160 healthy volunteers were included in this cross-sectional study. Cronbach's alpha indicated excellent internal consistency of the scale. Principal Component Analysis indicated a two-component solution in both samples. Conclusions: Our study confirmed the validity and reliability of the Romanian version of DSES and it encourages its use in future studies of spirituality or studies regarding the influence of spirituality on depression."


The end of the Risorgimento, a tumultuous period of Italian state unification culminating under the House of Savoy in 1861, represented a transition in Italian politics and identity. Before the Risorgimento, the Italian peninsula was a collection of kingdoms and competing political entities. As the country unified for the first time, the ruling aristocratic class became increasingly less powerful and relevant. Luchino Visconti's Il Gattopardo recounts the novel of Tomasi di Lampedusa, depicting this period in Italy's history by exploring the tension between the old, aristocratic class and new bourgeoisie class. Particularly, Visconti's development of the story's two leading protagonists, Prince of Salina and Angelica, highlights the social and political transition of Italian classes during the Risorgimento and demonstrates the strained relationship between those who strive for progress and those who remain stagnant in their traditional identities which previously defined Italy. The Prince's tacit consent and surrender to the new system that is overcoming his world demonstrate his realization to the inevitability of change. Angelica juxtaposes the Prince's character with her un-refined femininity which represents a sense of raw power of the new order. Through the Prince and Angelica, Visconti encourages history to face the present times, where emerging middle class and nationalist ideals triumph over the old, traditional social structure. 1 Pietropaolo: New World Triumph in Il Gattopardo Published by JHU Macksey Journal, 2020


This work describes a study of elemental abundances for 30 metal-poor stars whose chemical abundances provide excellent information for setting constraints on models of neutron-capture processes. Based on the abundances of main r- and weak r-process stars, the abundance patterns of main r-process and weak r-process are obtained. The two r-process component coefficients are defined to determine the relative contributions from individual neutron-capture process to abundances of metal-poor stars. Based on the component coefficients, we find that metal-poor stars BD+42621 and HD 4306 are also weak r-process stars, which means that the abundance pattern produced by weak r-process is stable. All metal-poor star abundances contain the contributions of both main r-process and weak r-process. The elements produced by weak r-process have increased along with Fe over the polluted history. Most of the metal-poor star abundances do not follow the pattern observed in the solar system, but there is a small fraction that do. For the low-[Sr/Fe] star BD-185550 ([Sr/Fe] ≲ -1), neutron-capture element abundances can be explained by the mixture of two r-process components. Since lighter elements in this star cannot be fitted by the two components, the abundance pattern of P-component is estimated from those abundances.


This guide provides Library resources for students and staff in Public Relations This libguide will assist students in their study of public relations


This study explores the evolution of accounting research by utilizing an unsupervised machine learning approach. We aim to identify the latent topics of accounting from the 1980s up to 2018, the dynamics and emerging topics of accounting research, and the economic reasons behind those changes. First, based on 23,220 articles from 46 accounting journals, we identify 55 topics using the latent Dirichlet allocation model. To illustrate the connection between topics, we use HistCite to generate a citation map along a timeline. The citation clusters demonstrate the "tribalism" phenomenon in accounting research. We then implement the dynamic topic model to reveal the dynamics of topics to show changes in accounting research. The emerging research trends are identified from the topic analytics. We further explore the economic reasons and in-depth insights into the topic evolution, indicating the economic development embeddedness nature of accounting research.
 JEL Classifications: B26; M40.


The moment method and corresponding boundary element methods are commonly used methods when analyzing radiation and scattering from structures. The purpose of the present paper is to present a general algorithm G2DMULT for calculating spectral Green's functions of 2D multiregion structures. The algorithm is based on previous formulations (Harrington, 1968), and the experience gained through previous work. The multiple material regions are handled in G2DMULT by the same solution procedure which is used to find Green's functions of planar one-dimensional (1D) multilayer structures in the G1DMULT algorithm. The reason for developing G2DMULT is to obtain a well structured and documented platform for further work with moment method solutions of 3D elements close to 2D structures. The present paper describes the general lay-out of G2DMULT, which has been implemented in Fortran code.


The crystal structure of a murine adenosine deaminase complexed with 6-hydroxyl-1,6-dihydropurine ribonucleoside, a nearly ideal transition-state analog, has been determined and refined at 2.4 angstrom resolution. The structure is folded as an eight-stranded parallel alpha/beta barrel with a deep pocket at the beta-barrel COOH-terminal end wherein the inhibitor and a zinc are bound and completely sequestered. The presence of the zinc cofactor and the precise structure of the bound analog were not previously known. The 6R isomer of the analog is very tightly held in place by the coordination of the 6-hydroxyl to the zinc and the formation of nine hydrogen bonds. On the basis of the structure of the complex a stereoselective addition-elimination or SN2 mechanism of the enzyme is proposed with the zinc atom and the Glu and Asp residues playing key roles. A molecular explanation of a hereditary disease caused by several point mutations of an enzyme is also presented.


Every year, over 2500 unnecessary appendectomies are carried out in the Netherlands. At the initiative of the Dutch College of Surgeons, the evidence-based guideline on the diagnosis and treatment of acute appendicitis was developed. This guideline recommends that appendectomy should not be carried out without prior imaging. Ultrasonography is the recommended imaging technique in patients with suspected appendicitis. After negative or inconclusive ultrasonography, a CT scan can be carried out. Appendectomy is the standard treatment for acute appendicitis; this can be done either by open or laparoscopic surgery. The first choice treatment of appendicular infiltrate is conservative treatment.


It has generally been assumed that Celtic linguistic influence on Old English is limited to a few marginal loanwords. If a language shift had taken place from Celtic to Old English, however, one would expect to find traces of that in Old English phonology and (morpho)syntax. In this article I argue that (1) the way in which the West Germanic sound system was reshaped in Old English strongly suggests the operation of a hitherto unrecognized substratum; (2) that phonetic substratum is strongly reminiscent of Irish rather than British Celtic; (3) the Old Irish phonetic−phonological system provides a more plausible model for reconstructing the phonetics of pre-Roman Celtic in Britain than the British Celtic system. The conclusion is that there is phonetic continuity between pre-Roman British Celtic and Old English, which suggests the presence of a pre-Anglo-Saxon population shifting to Old English.


This article explores the role of schools in the production and reproduction of social inequalities. It is based upon an empirical research conducted between 2005 and 2007 in twenty-four secondary schools located in the city of Buenos Aires, the surroundings of La Plata, the southern province of Neuquen and the northern province of Salta. It focuses on the findings from interviewing school principals. The analysis runs through four axis: how the inclusion of new social groups, particularly marginalized groups, is being perceived, and how it is changing the functions and operations of secondary schools; how the opposition between "them" (students and their families) and "us" (adults, school system) is played out; how the teaching of communication and expression and the language of rights appear as new formative contents; and how particular horizons for school actions are defined and envisaged. In these four dimensions, the article will seek to identify how social inequalities are being thought in the educational setting, and will inquire whether they are also being produced, and not only reproduced, by the school system.


Cell-free extracts of Rickettsia typhi were tested for activities of enzymes of the tricarboxylic acid cycle, of glutamate catabolism, and of glycolysis. The organisms were grown in the yolk sacs of chicken embryos, harvested shortly before the time of embryo death, purified by Renografin density gradient centrifugation, and ruptured in a French pressure cell. The following enzymatic activities were demonstrated: high levels of malate dehydrogenase (MDH), moderate levels of glutamate-oxaloacetate transaminase, glutamate, succinate, and isocitrate dehydrogenases, and citrate synthase, and low levels of glutamate-pyruvate transaminase. The specific activities of some of these enzymes were higher when the rickettsiae were harvested at a time of active proliferation, 3 to 4 days prior to embryo death. Rickettsial MDH was differentiated from host MDH by its migration pattern on polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The activities of MDH and two other dehydrogenases, demonstrable after the cells had been disrupted, were absent from purified, intact rickettsial preparations. No activity was detected for glucose-6-phosphate, 6-phosphogluconate, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate, lactate dehydrogenases, phosphoglucose isomerase, fructoaldolase, or pyruvate kinase. Our results suggest that extracts of R. typhi that contain demonstrable enzymes involved in the catabolism of glutamate and tricarboxylic acid cycle intermediates, unlike Coxiella burnetti, lack detectable glycolytic activity.


Although the transformation of American medicine in the last part of the twentieth century has been well documented, a major development that has significant implications for health care marketing has been essentially overlooked. This development has been the shift in health care from a primarily masculine orientation to a primarily feminine orientation. This shift has been driven by, among other factors, the transition from an acute care orientation to a chronic care orientation and calls for a qualitatively different approach to the marketing of health services.


Nuclear export of the large (60S) ribosomal subunit depends on the adapter protein Nmd3 to provide a nuclear export signal (NES). The leucine-rich NES is recognized by the export receptor Crm1 to mediate export via interaction with the nuclear pore complex (NPC). Here, we show that certain mutant Nmd3 proteins that are impaired for binding to the 60S subunit accumulate at the nuclear envelope. These mutant proteins also show enhanced binding to Crm1, both in vivo and in vitro. Although their interaction with the NPC is dependent on recognition of the NES by Crm1, their interaction with Crm1 is not strictly dependent on RanGTP. Using a collection of GFP-tagged nucleoporin mutants, we identified several nucleoporins, including components of the Nup82 complex that copurified with the mutant Nmd3. The Nup82 complex is on the cytoplasmic face of the NPC and has previously been shown to be important as a terminal binding site for Crm1-mediated export. Mutations in the Nup82 complex led to accumulation of wild-type Nmd3 in the nucleoplasm, suggesting that the interaction of mutant Nmd3 with the Nup82 complex reflects a defect in the bona fide export pathway for the 60S subunit. These results suggest that in the absence of the ribosome, Nmd3 is not efficiently released from Crm1 at the NPC.


In order to resolve the problem of connecting rod notches machining, a new process of WEDM (Wire Electric Discharge Machine) has been presented, and it is greatly possible that expensive laser process can be replaced by WEDM in virtue of its unique advantages. Firstly, process parameters of notch have been analyzed, and project of machining notch using WEDM has been introduced, including measures to achieve good-quality notch. The relationship between cutting speed and power supply parameters has been investigated, and it is discovered that micro-crackle on bottom of notch are greatly effect to fracture splitting process, also new idea of active controlling micro-crackle has been presented. Finally, fracture splitting machining has been carried out. The cost and entrance standard of fracture splitting process are greatly dropped owing to new breakthrough of machining notch using WEDM.


Abstract. Monsoon rainfall is of great importance for agricultural production in both China and India. Understanding the features of the Indian and Chinese monsoon rainfall and its long term predictability is a challenge for research. In this paper Principal Component Analysis (PCA) method was adopted to analyze Indian monsoon and Chinese monsoon separately as well as jointly during the period 1951 to 2003. The common structure of Indian monsoon and Chinese monsoon rainfall data was explored, and its correlation with large scale climate indices and thus the possibility of prediction were analyzed. The joint PCA results gives a clearer correlation map between Chinese monsoon rainfall and Indian monsoon rainfall. The common rainfall structure presents a significant teleconnection to Sea Surface Temperature anomaly (SSTa), moisture transport and other climate indices. Specifically, our result shows that Northern China would garner less rainfall when whole Indian rainfall is below normal, and with cold SSTa over the Indonesia region more rainfall would be distributed over India and Southern China. The result also shows that SSTa in the previous winter months could be a good indicator for the summer monsoon rainfall in China.


To assess the potential for improving sustainability and efficiency in an important Vietnamese finfish culture, we quantified sustainability indicators for 2 downstream and 2 upstream 3 to 4 m deep ponds for striped catfish Pangasianodon hypophthalmus (Sauvage, 1878) production along the Mekong River, Vietnam. The resources used per kg fish produced were (downstream vs. upstream): 2.8 vs. 7.1 m3 water, 0.04 vs. 0.14 kWh energy, 0.06 vs. 0.11 h human labour and 0.06 vs. 0.15 g antibiotics (p 0.05). Nitrogen and phosphorus utilization efficiencies were 44 vs. 40% for nitrogen (p 0.05). An advantage of production in deep ponds is the breakdown of organic matter through denitrification and fermentation. Based on the difference between feed input and monitored outputs and sinks, an estimated 29–37% of dry matter volatilized as CO2 and 30–34% of nitrogen was lost as N2. A major disadvantage of the deep pond production system is its dependency on water exchange with the Mekong River, resulting in low biosecurity, which is aggravated by the lack of availability of disease-free fingerlings. Dealing with disease caused farmers to apply suboptimal feeding rations and to lengthen the culture period. Developing (semi-)closed systems that adopt elements from recirculation technology could improve both culture performance and sustainability.


This action research project focuses on the effects of using hands-on activities in a first grade of 34 students in a public elementary school. To find out students learning styles and multiple intelligences strategies visual and kinesthetic material was taken into account to support lessons following the topics of first grade syllabus. This study states the importance of including students' interests, realities and needs in order to create an environment that invites them to use English at the same time they learn by doing. The findings suggest that kinesthetic activities and tactile and visual materials can be effective to improve learners' linguistic skills.


Musca domestica L. (Diptera: Muscidae) is a relevant domestic, medical and veterinary pest against which new active ingredients must be continuously developed and tested. A key feature of these ingredients is the ability to interfere with the reproductive capacity, causing sterility in both sexes. The authors have developed two simple low-cost devices to evaluate the reproductive capacity in both sexes of M. domestica. The use of these devices for experimental tests could be extended to other fly species.


: This article examines decision ‐ making in Federal Court of Canada immigration law applications for stays of removal, focusing on how the rates at which stays are granted depend on which judge decides the case. The article deploys a form of computational natural language processing, using a large ‐ language model machine learning process (GPT ‐ 3) to extract data from online Federal Court dockets. The article reviews patterns in outcomes in thousands of stay of removal applications identified through this process and reveals a wide range in stay grant rates across many judges. The article argues that the Federal Court should take measures to encourage more consistency in stay decision ‐ making and cautions against relying heavily on stays of removal to ensure that deportation complies with constitutional procedural justice protections. The article is also a demonstration of how machine learning can be used to pursue empirical legal research projects that would have been cost ‐ prohibitive or technically challenging only a few years ago – and shows how technology that is increasingly used to enhance the power of the state at the expense of marginalized migrants can instead be used to scrutinize legal decision ‐ making in the immigration law field, hopefully in ways that enhance the rights of migrants. The article also contributes to the broader field of computational legal research in Canada by making available to other non ‐ commercial researchers the code used for the project, as well as a large dataset of Federal Court dockets.


Adhesion level control is very necessary to avoid slippage of rail wheelset and track from derailment for smoothing running of rail vehicle. In this paper the proper dynamics of wheelset for velocities acting in three dimensions of wheelset and rail track has been discussed along with creep forces on each wheel in longitudinal, lateral and spin directions has been enumerated and computed for suitable modeling. The concerned results have been simulated by Matlab code to observe the correlation of this phenomenon to compare creepage and creep forces for detecting adhesion level. This adhesion identification is recognized by applying coulomb's law for sliding friction by comparing tangential and normal forces through co-efficient of friction


Eastern redcedar (Juniperus virginiana L.) is a woody plant that is rapidly encroaching into the grasslands of states located in the US Great Plains. There is some concern that redcedar will adversely impact stream discharge in these water-limited areas through increased transpiration and canopy interception in comparison to that of grasslands. We conducted a modeling study in the central reach of the North Canadian River basin between Lake Canton and Lake Overholser, located in central Oklahoma. The North Canadian River supplies about 25% of Oklahoma City's water supply. After model calibration, we simulated redcedar encroachment into the study area's grasslands in 10% increments to assess impact on stream discharge. We also performed simulations that represented complete removal of redcedar from the study area. Our simulations suggested that if all grasslands in the study area were replaced by redcedar, the simulated reduction in stream discharge would equal 112% of current municipal water demand and 89% of the projected 2060 demand. However, a more realistic conversion of 20% of grassland to redcedar would, according to our simulations, reduce stream discharge by an amount of water equivalent to ≈ 27% of the current water demand, or ≈ 21% of the projected 2060 demand. Our model simulations suggest that encroachment of redcedar into grasslands could have a detrimental effect on stream discharge, which could impact water availability on populations further downstream.


This paper presents a real microstructure model which has the same fiber volume fraction and tows' spatial configuration with 3D rectangular composites to simulate the ballistic impact damage of the composites struck by steel projectile. The commercial available FEM code of Ls-Dyna was employed to calculate the interaction between the composite targets and steel projectile. From the comparison of residual velocities between simulation and experiment, it is proven the microstructure model can simulate the ballistic penetration with higher precision than the continuum model. The acceleration vs. time curve reveals the complicated interaction between composite and projectile in ballistic penetration. The prominent advantage of the microstructure model is that it can simulate the local damage mode of the composites at real microstructure level and obtain vivid simulating results.


In order to verify whether differentiation of adult stem cells toward bone tissue is promoted by high-frequency vibration (HFV), bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) were mechanically stimulated with HFV (30 Hz) for 45 minutes a day for 21 or 40 days. Cells were seeded in osteogenic medium, which enhances differentiation towards bone tissue. The effects of the mechanical treatment on differentiation were measured by Alizarin Red test, (q) real-time PCR, and protein content of the extracellular matrix. In addition, we analyzed the proliferation rate and apoptosis of BMSC subjected to mechanical stimulation. A strong increase in all parameters characterizing differentiation was observed. Deposition of calcium was almost double in the treated samples; the expression of genes involved in later differentiation was significantly increased and protein content was higher for all osteogenic proteins. Lastly, proliferation results indicated that stimulated BMSCs have a decreased growth rate in comparison with controls, but both treated and untreated cells do not enter the apoptosis process. These findings could reduce the gap between research and clinical application for bone substitutes derived from patient cells by improving the differentiation protocol for autologous cells and a further implant of the bone graft into the patient.


For many years brand names have been using techniques such as branded content or content marketing in an effort to establish new relationships with  their customers. Another more current method is known as brand journalism, and it is quickly becoming an excellent way for brand names to attract customers and maintain their loyalty through new channels. In the United States and some European countries for example, this tendency is coming to the forefront, while in our country its implementation is still limited, with only a few examples worth mentioning.In light of the absence of investigations that analyse the characteristics and singularities of brand journalism in a wider perspective, this paper seeks to carry out a theoretical approach to brand journalism through a qualitative methodological triangulation combining diverse methods. It will also study this journalistic figure in the United States and Spain, analysing some cases in our country and finally it will assess the possibility of implanting specific university training. By doing so, we understand we are giving a global vision of this tendency that at present, figures as an option for producing quality content for brand names and at the same time as a growing employment opportunity in the current labour market.


Storms are the main abiotic disturbance in European forests, effects of which are expected to intensify in the future, hence the importance of forest stand stability is increasing. The predisposition of Norway spruce to wind damage appears to be enhanced by pathogens such as Heterobasidion spp., which reduce stability of individual trees. However, detailed information about the effects of the root rot on the stability of individual trees across diverse soil types is still lacking. The aim of the study was to assess the effect of root rot on the individual tree stability of Norway spruce growing on drained peat and mineral soils. In total, 77 Norway spruce trees (age 50–80 years) growing in four stands were tested under static loading. The presence of Heterobasidion spp. had a significant negative effect on the bending moment at primary and secondary failure of the tested trees irrespectively of soil type. This suggests increased legacy effects (e.g., susceptibility to pathogens and pests due to fractured roots and altered water uptake) of storms. Damaged trees act as weak spots increasing the susceptibility of stands to wind damage, thus forming a negative feedback loop and contributing to an ongoing decline in vitality of Norway spruce stands following storms in the study region in the future. Accordingly, the results support the importance of timely identification of the decayed trees, lowering stand density and/or shortening rotation period as the measures to counteract the increasing effects of storms on Norway spruce stands.