A high proportion of Micrococcus luteus cells in cultures which had been starved for 3 to 6 months lost the ability to grow and form colonies on agar plates but could be resuscitated from their dormancy by incubation in an appropriate liquid medium (A. S. Kaprelyants and D. B. Kell, Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 59:3187-3196, 1993). In the present work, such cultures were studied by both flow cytometry and conventional microbiological methods and were found to contain various numbers of viable cells. Pretreatment of such cultures with penicillin G, and subsequent dilution, was used to vary this number. When the initial number of colony-forming cells per 30-ml flask was approximately nine (±five) or more, resuscitation of 10 to 40% of the cells, and thus culture growth, was observed. The lag period before the appearance of a population of cells showing significant accumulation of the fluorescent dye rhodamine 123 (i.e., of cells with measurable membrane energization) decreased from 70 to 27 h when the number of viable cells was increased from 30 to 105 per flask, while the lag period before an observable increase in the number of colony-forming cells occurred was almost constant (at some 20 h). Provided there were more than nine (±five) initially viable cells per flask, the number of initially viable cells did not affect the final percentage of resuscitable cells in the culture. The lag period could be ascribed in part to the time taken to restore the membrane permeability barrier of starved cells during resuscitation, as revealed by flow cytometric assessment of the uptake of the normally membrane-impermeant fluorescent DNA stain PO-PRO-3 {4-[3-methyl-2, 3-dihydro-(benzo-1, 3-oxazole)-2-methylidene]-1-(3′-trimethylammonium propyl)-pyridinium diiodide}. Although cell populations which contained fewer than nine ±five viable cells per flask failed to grow, 4 to 20% of the cells (of 1.2 X 106) were able to accumulate rhodamine 123 after 80 to 100 h of incubation, showing the ability of a significant number of the cells in the population at least to display "metabolic resuscitation." Resuscitation and cell growth under such conditions were favored by the use of a 1:1 mixture of fresh lactate medium and supernatant from late-logarithmic-phase M. luteus cultures as the resuscitation medium. We conclude that the presence of a small fraction of viable cells at the onset of resuscitation facilitates the recovery of the majority of the remaining (dormant) cells. The cell density dependence of the kinetics, or population effect, suggests that this recovery is due to the excretion of some factor(s) which promoted the transition of cells from a state in which they are incapable of growth and division to one in which they are capable of colony formation.


New Benzodizepine derivative was prepared by reaction of chalcone with 5-bromo o-phenylenediamine in presence of pyridine. First Chalcones were prepared by treatment of 4-acetyl-5-methyl-2-(4-methylphenyl)-2,4-dihydro-3Hpyrazol- 3-one with different substituted aldehyde by claisen-schimidt condensation. The structures of the newly synthesized Benzodiazepine derivatives have characterized by IR, 1H-NMR, Mass spectroscopy and elemental analysis. The synthesized compounds were evaluated for their antimicrobial activities.


In the scope of insensitive and lightweight motor case development study, design, prototype production, development and verification phases of a carbon composite rocket motor case are presented. The development phase is completed by performing hydrostatic burst tests for two composite motor cases and static firing tests for four prototypes. Static firing tests following the combined environmental tests of four prototypes and insensitive munitions tests of two prototypes are performed to fulfill the requirements of the verification phase. At the end of the test series, it was shown that all the prototypes satisfy ballistic and mechanical/structural performance requirements together with Type V insensitive munitions requirements for fast cookoff and bullet impact threats according to STANAG 4240 and 4241, respectively. Hence, the motor with composite case development and verification studies were proved to be successful.


Women are increasingly concerned about the wearing comfortability and the compensatory function of the brassiere to achieve an appearance of both lifted and gathered breasts. Many researches had been conducted on the pressure compression comfort and breast shaping capability. As the main components of a bra, the band and the cup have been reported in many literatures. Taken as an accessory, however, the function of the bra strap on lifting and gathering the breast has not been documented. In an attempt to analyze the breast lifting and gathering function caused by the strap, we took such factors as the strap's width, the connected positions with the bra band and the stretching status of the straps in consideration, and designed this pilot study to clarify the effect of the above three factors of bra strap in aspect of the assistance for the breast lifting and gathering function. Twelve female subjects were invited to take the wearing experiment. Five measurements indicating the lifted and gathered effects of the breast for the strap were recorded for analysis. The result concluded that the stretching status of the strap was the determined cause of the lifting and shaping effects for the bra straps.


Oversea Development Institute Caroline Ashley, ODI 111 Westminster Bridge Road, London, SE1 7JD UK firstname.lastname@example.com The tourism industry has established itself as one of the world's major industries, one that offers significant opportunities for employment creation, local economic development and integration in to the international market. Millions of poor people live in places that are also tourism destinations. But many tourism companies claim that poverty reduction is not their business. This brief explains why poverty does matter to tourism businesses and describes what companies – both in the originating and destination countries – can do to contribute to the global effort on poverty reduction.


Gastric varices may develop in the absence of oesophageal varices and in the absence of portal hypertension. Isolated gastric varices have only recently emerged as a separate entity. The condition is usually due to underlying pancreatic lesions. The diagnosis is made on endoscopy. Bleeding from the varices is best controlled by splenectomy, while the pancreatic lesion is dealt with on its own merits. Two cases are described to draw attention to this condition, and the salient features of this condition are summarized diagrammatically.


An approach to the integrated water resources management based on Neuro-Dynamic Programming (NDP) with an improved technique for fastening its Artificial Neural Network (ANN) training phase will be presented. When dealing with networks of water resources, Stochastic Dynamic Programming provides an effective solution methodology but suffers from the so-called "curse of dimensionality", that rapidly leads to the problem intractability. NDP can sensibly mitigate this drawback by approximating the solution with ANNs. However in the real world applications NDP shows to be considerably slowed just by this ANN training phase. To overcome this limit a new training architecture (SIEVE: Selective Improvement by Evolutionary Variance Extinction) has been developed. In this paper this new approach is theoretically introduced and some preliminary results obtained on a real world case study are presented. Copyright © 2005 IFAC


This Book Review addresses two important new books, Professor Kenneth Mack's Representing the Race: The Creation of the Civil Rights Lawyer and Professors Devon Carbado and Mitu Gulati's Acting White? Rethinking Race in Post-Racial America, and utilizes their insights to both explore the challenges that face the next generation of civil rights lawyers and offer suggestions on how this next generation of civil rights lawyers can overcome these difficulties. Overall, this Book Review highlights one similarity in the roles of black civil rights attorneys past and present: the need for lawyers in both generations to perform their identities in ways that make them racially representative of Blacks and racially palatable to Whites. Thereafter, this Book Review shows how the performance of black civil rights attorneys as the representatives of individuals, groups, and communities has become more complicated over time by highlighting the differences between the challenges encountered by the early black civil rights lawyers and today's and the next generation's civil rights lawyers. Finally, this Book Review offers suggestions for strategies that the next generation of civil rights attorneys may use to rechannel the study and practice of civil rights law in more experimental, activist directions that attend to the complexities of how race is understood in today's society as well as the complexities of how racial discrimination is practiced today.


Abstract:In the Christian society and culture of England before the Norman Conquest literary education was centred on grammar. The extant texts reflect an educational system which by no means neglected rhetorical education—but the classical ars bene dicendi was apparently basically unknown. Anglo-Saxon England thus provides a test case for the continuation and elaboration of alternatives for classical rhetorical teaching. It is argued that, besides the influence of pedagogical considerations and Germanic poetical devices, the background of Anglo-Saxon rhetorical strategies is to be sought in an extended grammatical curriculum. Instruction in the praeexercitamina may have been included in this curriculum. The figures and tropes contained in the grammars for the purpose of text interpretation were certainly studied, and they were also employed in the production of literature. Of utmost importance was the creative use of rhetorical techniques which were deduced from model texts by way of grammatical enarratio.


Philosophy is often taken at its core to be an argumentative appeal to our own native capacity to judge the truth without bias. I claim in this paper that the very notion of unbiased truth represents a particular interest, viz., the interests of the political as such: the city. My thesis is that Socrates' city in speech in Book 11 of the Republic exposes the injustice concealed at the core of demonstrative philosophy, and on this basis he goes on to offer an account of philosophical education based on a notion of musical inheritance.


PURPOSE
We studied the prognostic and predictive value of immunohistochemically detected occult tumor cells (OTCs) in lymph nodes and bone marrow aspirates obtained from node-negative breast cancer patients. All were classified as distant metastases-free using conventional staging methods.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
A total of 484 patients with pT1-2N0M0 breast cancer and 70 with pT1-2N1M0 breast cancer and a single affected lymph node participated in our trial. Ipsilateral axillary lymph nodes and intraoperatively aspirated bone marrow were examined. All samples were examined for OTCs using monoclonal antibodies to cytokeratins 8, 18, 19. Immunohistological findings were correlated with other prognostic factors. The mean follow-up was 54 +/- 24 months.

RESULTS
OTCs were detected in 180 (37.2%) of 484 pT1-2N0M0 patients: in the bone marrow of 126 patients (26.0%), in the lymph nodes of 31 patients (6.4%), and in bone marrow and lymph nodes of 23 (4.8%) patients. Of the 70 patients with pT1-2N1MO breast cancer and a single involved lymph node, OTCs were identified in the bone marrow of 26 (37.1%). The ability to detect tumor cells increased with the following tumor features: larger size, poor differentiation, and higher proliferation. Tumors of patients with OTCs more frequently demonstrated lymph node invasion, blood vessel invasion, higher urokinase-type plasminogen activator levels, and increased PAI-1 concentrations. Patients with detected OTCs showed reduced disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OAS) rates that were comparable to those observed in patients who had one positive lymph node. Multivariate analysis of prognostic factors revealed that OTCs, histological grading, and tumor size are significant predictors of DFS; OTCs and grading of OAS.

CONCLUSION
OTCs detected by simultaneous immunohistochemical analysis of axillary lymph nodes and bone marrow demonstrate independent metastatic pathways. Although OTCs were significantly more frequent in patients with other unfavorable prognostic factors, they were confirmed as an independent prognostic factor for pT1-2N0M0, R0 breast cancer patients.


A low-cost spacer device Whilst admiring the innovative spacer device tested (but apparently not designed) by Kerac et al. (Trop Doct 1998; 28: 228-9) I was concerned by two aspects of the study. First, given the well-known effect of salbutamol as a bronchodilator, and the widely accepted usefulness of spacer devices in the delivery of salbutamol, why was the placebo arm included? The useful comparison was between MDI (metered inhaler device) alone, MDI and bottle, and MDI and Volumatic spacer. The placebo arm contributed nothing and the data for placebo via spacer is not presented. Second, all the patients had been previously diagnosed as having 'chronic, stable, asthma'. Given that the treatment regime was already three times daily, and so bronchodilator responses to salbutamol could easily have been observed during a day, was the unsupervised withholding of medication overnight justified? Was this study presented to a Research Ethics Committee in either the UK or India? Should a statement confirming ethical review not be included in Tropical Doctor study reports, at least when the work is designed in British STEPHEN GORDON teaching hospitals? Wellcome Trust Research Centre, Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, PO Box 30096, Chichiri, Blantyre 3 , Malawi


Because of his close association with Aristotle, the contributions to meteorology made by Theophrastus have been overlooked and it has been often thought that Theophrastus simply enlarged and expounded upon the theories of Aristotle. A new English translation of De Ventis (On Winds) suggests that Theophrastus made a number of significant and innovative contributions to meteorological thought, while the greater empiricism and the inductive approach of De Ventis stands in contrast to the Meteorologica of Aristotle. By relegating the Aristotelian dry exhalation to a minor position in his anemology, Theophrastus is able to accept the Presocratic belief of wind as air in motion. In addition, Theophrastus presents new theories for advection and for the causes of the horizontal motion of the winds. De Ventis, based upon a highly accurate observational base, also contains perceptive comments on climate change, and on local climatic peculiarities.


This investigation investigates the extent to which literature and criticism were politically charged in 1860s Russia. Ideology was clearly present within both literature and literary criticism, despite claims to the contrary. Pisarev, despite his claims to view a text without ideology, in his criticism demonstrated his preference for the Nihilist movement to which he belonged. The fact that Turgenev's novel sparked such a furore shows how tense society was during this period. The controversy caused shows the extent to which Russia was in need of reform through the degree of division in the national response. Turgenev explained how "one critic even brought forth the fact that I made Bazarov lose at cards to Father Alexey. "He just doesn't know how to wound and humiliate enough! He doesn't even know how to play cards!" There is absolutely no doubt that if I had made Bazarov win, the same critic would triumphantly exclaim: "Isn't it clear? The author wants to suggest that Bazarov is a cheat!"


In the rural areas of India, fluoridated drinking water, industrial fluoride pollution and fluoride-rich feed phosphate supplements are the major sources of fluoride exposure for domesticated water buffaloes (Bubalus bubalis). However, the fluoridated drinking groundwater is the commonest and principal source of fluoride exposure for these ruminants. Chronic fluoride exposure for long-time deteriorate the animal health and causes the fluorosis disease. In the country, the drinking groundwater sources of villages are contaminated with fluoride beyond the threshold value, 1.0 or 1.5 mg/L. At 1.5-1.7 ppm fluoride concentration in drinking water, 62.2% and 21.6% calves and 55.9% and 48.3% adult buffaloes are found to be afflicted with dental and skeletal fluorosis, respectively. The maximum prevalence of dental and skeletal fluorosis, 96.8% and 34.4% in calves and 66.9% and 60.2% in adult buffaloes has also been reported at or > 3.0 ppm fluoride in drinking water, respectively. However, calves are found to be more sensitive and susceptible to chronic fluoride toxicity or fluorosis. Besides the deterioration of the animal health, chronic fluoride intoxication in buffaloes also weakens the rural economy which has been focussed in the present review. In this communication, besides the status of chronic fluoride intoxication in the form of osteo-dental and non-skeletal fluorosis in buffaloes, determinations, bio-indicators and bio-markers of fluorosis and prevention and control of chronic fluoride poisoning in these animals are also considered and briefly and critically reviewed. Simultaneously, research gaps are also identified and highlighted them for further research study on chronic fluoride intoxication in buffaloes. Findings of this review may help in preparation of health policy for improving the health and mitigation of fluorosis in economically important buffalo animals in the country.


Military defense is generally treated in economics texts as a "public good†because the benefits are presumed to be shared by all citizens. However, defense spending by the United States cannot legitimately be classified as a public good, since the primary purpose of those expenditures has been to project power in support of private business interests. Throughout the course of the 20th century, U.S. military spending has been largely devoted to protecting the overseas assets of multinational corporations that are based in the United States or allied nations. Companies extracting oil, mineral ores, timber, and other raw materials are the primary beneficiaries. The U.S. military provides its services by supporting compliant political leaders in developing countries and by punishing or deposing regimes that threaten the interests of U.S.†based corporations. The companies involved in this process generally have invested only a small amount of their own capital. Instead, the value of their overseas assets largely derives from the appreciation of oil and other raw materials in situ. Companies bought resource†rich lands cheaply, as early as the 1930s or 1940s, and then waited for decades to develop them. In order to make a profit on this long†range strategy, they formed cartels to limit global supply and relied on the U.S. military to help them maintain secure title over a period of decades. Those operations have required suppressing democratic impulses in dozens of nations. The global "sprawl†of extractive companies has been the catalyst of U.S. foreign policy for the past century. The U.S. Department of Defense provides a giant subsidy to companies operating overseas, and the cost is borne by the taxpayers of the United States, not by the corporate beneficiaries. Defining military spending as a "public good†has been a mistake with global ramifications, leading to patriotic support for imperialist behavior.


This study reports a polymer electrolyte fuel cell based on polydimethylsiloxane coated with a flexible current-collecting layer of Ag nanowire percolation networks. The reactive area of the bendable fuel cell was 9 cm2 and showed the maximum absolute power of 639 mW (the power density was 71 mW cm−2) under various bending conditions. Impedance spectra of the operating cell revealed that ohmic and Faradaic resistances decreased under the bent condition. Overall, the degree of bending improves the cell performances. The structural modeling result showed that decrease of the resistance and corresponding performance enhancement were due to the increased compressive force normal to the membrane electrode assembly, which was investigated through finite element simulation of the stress within the bendable fuel cell.


In radar applications there is a need for high power amplifiers. This paper describes the design and performance of a pulsed solid state amplifier for radar transmitters. The amplifier is designed of four cascaded commercial amplifiers (Excelics 8 W Internally Matched Power FET, EIA 1616-8P) with micro strip technology on Rogers laminate RO3000. The amplifier works in frequency range 15.5 to 17.5 GHz. The drain voltage is pulsed by a pulse aggregate also designed at Saab Bofors Dynamics. In pulse mode the output power is 10 W (40 dBm) in the frequency range 15.5 to 16.5 GHz and the gain is about 20 dB. In this paper we describe the amplifier design and performance. We also show the results from simulations and measurements during the design stage and discuss the problems we had.


This book is a treasure for scholars of Rajput history. Richard D. Saran and Norman P. Ziegler, whose contributions to Rajput studies are well known to specialists in the field, have given us a work of deep and exacting scholarship. It is the culmination of decades devoted to the study of Middle Marwari chronicles from Rajasthan. The sources translated here provide access to the fortunes of a branch of the Jodhpur royal family, and in doing so they illuminate the larger world of Rajputs in the middle period.The translations are accompanied by an extensive explanatory apparatus taking various forms, which includes a valuable essay on Rajput social organization, complete genealogies, and biographies of all the major personages of the chronicles.Richard D. Saran received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Michigan. Norman P. Ziegler received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago.


Over the past years, metagenomics has revolutionized our view of microbial diversity. Moreover, extracting near-complete genomes from metagenomes has led to the discovery of known metabolic traits in unsuspected lineages. Genome-resolved metagenomics relies on assembly of the sequencing reads and subsequent binning of assembled contigs, which might be hampered by strain heterogeneity or low abundance of a target organism. Here we present a complementary approach, metagenome marker gene mining, and use it to assess the global diversity of archaeal methane metabolism through the mcrA gene. To this end, we have screened 18,465 metagenomes for the presence of reads matching a database representative of all known mcrA proteins and reconstructed gene sequences from the matching reads. We use our mcrA dataset to assess the environmental distribution of the Methanomassiliicoccales and reconstruct and analyze a draft genome belonging to the 'Lake Pavin cluster', an understudied environmental clade of the Methanomassiliicoccales. Thus, we show that marker gene mining can enhance the discovery power of metagenomics, by identifying novel lineages and aiding selection of targets for in-depth analyses. Marker gene mining is less sensitive to strain heterogeneity and has a lower abundance threshold than genome-resolved metagenomics, as it only requires short contigs and there is no binning step. Additionally, it is computationally cheaper than genome resolved metagenomics, since only a small subset of reads needs to be assembled. It is therefore a suitable approach to extract knowledge from the many publicly available sequencing projects.


. In this paper, we discuss the concepts of a flexible and high-performing solution for automatic quality control that integrates state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms with collaborative robots. The overall aim of the paper is to take the first steps towards improved automatic quality inspections in the manufacturing industry, leading to reduced quality defects and reduced costs in the manufacturing process. For developing and evaluating a first version of a solution that integrates state-of-the-art machine vision and collaborative robots we use a real-world case study focusing on improved quality inspection. Results from the case study shows that it is possible to realize automatic quality inspections through the use of a collaborative robot as intended, but also that there are some challenges that need to be further addressed in order to achieve a top-performing system.


Ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) is a common and serious complication of reperfusion following vascular occlusion. We present a novel interpretation of the pathogenesis of IRI. According to this hypothesis, anoxia resulting from ischemia allows translocation of phosphatidylserine to the surface of endothelial cells (ECs), providing an attachment site for leukocytes and platelets. This attachment impedes blood flow through the microvasculature. During IRI mediators of increased vascular permeability are produced, resulting in edema. We have developed a recombinant homodimer of human Annexin V, Diannexin, to attenuate IRI. Annexin V (36kDa) rapidly passes from the circulation into the urine. In Diannexin 2 annexin V molecules are joined by a short peptide linker to produce a 73 kDa protein, which exceeds the renal filtration threshold. Diannexin has a half-life of about 2.5 hours in the human circulation. Diannexin also has a higher affinity for phosphatidylserine on cell surfaces than the monomer has. Such binding inhibits leukocyte attachment to ECs, and inflammatory mediator formation, during IRI.The aim of the study now reported was to ascertain the effects of Diannexin on IRI in the rat cremaster muscle flap, as revealed by intravital microscopy. During IRI there was increased attachment of leukocytes to ECs, reduced blood flow and augmented vascular permeability. Administration of Diannexin before or just after ischemia prevented these effects. Diannexin inhibited transmigration of leukocytes during IRI. Edema complicates peripheral vascular surgery, stroke, and other clinical conditions. Diannexin has proven to be safe when administered to patients after major surgical operations, and it may be useful to prevent IRI associated with peripheral vascular surgery.


Recent work has found that multi-task training with a large number of diverse tasks can uniformly improve downstream performance on unseen target tasks. In contrast, literature on task transferability has established that the choice of intermediate tasks can heavily affect downstream task performance. In this work, we aim to disentangle the effect of scale and relatedness of tasks in multi-task representation learning. We find that, on average, increasing the scale of multi-task learning, in terms of the number of tasks, indeed results in better learned representations than smaller multi-task setups. However, if the target tasks are known ahead of time, then training on a smaller set of related tasks is competitive to the large-scale multi-task training at a reduced computational cost.


Several stocks, selected because they carried previously identified factors governing either crossing over in males or mutability, were examined to determine whether the effects of these factors are restricted to one or the other process. Neither of two dominant enhancers of male crossing over had detectable effects on Minute mutation frequencies among progenies of assayed F(1) males. Genetically equivalent F(1) males monitored for crossing over showed no unequivocal effect of either of three mutators (two dominant and one extrachromosomal) or of a suppressor of mutability. However, one combination of a dominant crossover enhancer with a dominant mutator showed synergistic increases in both crossover and Minute frequencies, and the possibility exists that a single extrachromosomally transmitted element suppresses both male crossing over and mutability. This suppressor element (or elements) had been previously diagnosed in the pc stock which, in this study, was discovered to have also a dominant enhancer of male crossing over and a dominant mutator occupying separable loci in the third chromosome. The pc enhancer of male crossing over differs from the dominant enhancer in another stock with respect to the regional distribution of crossovers, and the pc mutator is distinguished from another 3-linked mutator by its preferential induction of mutations at the Delta locus.


Health researchers and campaigners have warned that a move by the UK government to stop lobbying by taxpayer funded bodies risked stifling research that questioned government policy.

Earlier this month the Cabinet Office announced that from May this year a new clause would be inserted into all grant agreements requiring that organisations that receive government grants spend their money on "improving people's lives and good causes." Guidance accompanying the announcement said that government grants should not be spent on campaigns to influence parliament, government, or political parties, and nor should they "influence legislative or regulatory action."1

It added that grant recipients were still free to engage in lobbying but should not use public money to do so. Any organisation that breached the clause may have its grant cancelled or be forced to repay it.

Qualifications could be issued only in "exceptional cases," for example if a …


Abstract:This commentary amplifies the insidious nature of the novel coronavirus (resulting in COVID19) and its ubiquitous spread, which disproportionately and adversely affect the health and well-being of people of color. The consequence is poor health outcomes and premature death. Ample previous literature documents health inequities in the morbidity and mortality statistics for Black and Brown people in the United States. Their excess deaths are due to disproportionately high rates of serious health conditions (diabetes; hypertension; asthma; and lung, kidney, and heart disease), as well as structural factors having to do with income, employment, and the built environment in which they live. The health conditions are exacerbated with ongoing societal problems and stress emerging from the country's history of dehumanizing racial inequities. Current discrimination comes most virulently in the form of systematic and institutionalized racist policies that keep racial and ethnic minorities marginalized and disempowered. Furthermore, people of color encounter the immediate external pressures of working away from home and using public transportation during the country's extraordinary ongoing lockdown, heightening the risk of exposure to the virus. Moreover, the same population is overrepresented in jails and prisons where social distancing is impossible. Any virulent virus without a vaccine is bound to become a human petri dish in which people of color in the U.S. today are caught. The war against the coronavirus for people of color is part and parcel of the war to eliminate historic inequities and to level the socioeconomic playing field. This article covers the racial/ethnic inequities in morbidity and mortality from COVID19 and the slow and untimely response by the federal government to address mediation of the spread of the virus. For people of color to transcend the coronavirus pandemic crisis there must be comprehensive access to COVID-19 testing and early, sustained, and affordable access to health care, including hospitalization. Such access will require national leadership, which seems to be in short supply.


Sense-making in information seeking process is one of the major information seeking models. Questions have been raised about information seekers' ambiguous needs and focus-shifting tendency relative to sense-making. This paper tackles this problem by reviewing two related approaches and suggesting an alternative interpretation from the semiotic point of view. The author argues that information seeking is often interactive, dynamic, and infinite just as the relationships between sign, object and interpretant posited in Peirce's semiotics. The implication of this paper is to alert information seekers about this potential endless information seeking process and come to terms with their search results which are based on their tasks.


The importance of serum amyloid A protein in the progression of renal failure was studied over three years in 28 patients with secondary (amyloid A type) amyloidosis predominantly due to rheumatoid arthritis. Creatinine clearance, the amount of protein in the urine, and serum amyloid A and C-reactive protein concentrations were determined regularly. Linear regression analysis showed a close correlation between the change in creatinine clearance each year and both serum amyloid A concentrations (20 patients: r= -0.83, p less than 0.001) and C-reactive protein concentrations (28 patients: r= -0.80, p less than 0.001). The correlation between serum amyloid A and C-reactive protein concentrations was also significant (317 parallel measurements: r=0.81, p less than 0.001). These findings suggest that monitoring serum amyloid A or C-reactive protein concentrations is valuable in assessing the prognosis in secondary amyloidosis and that therapeutic measures that lower serum amyloid A concentrations may reduce the formation of amyloid.


As commercial platforms mediate large swaths of online markets for information and services, scholars have shown how users resist, or work around these opaque digital environments. From content producers to Uber drivers, digital laborers are particularly adept at appropriating and gaming platforms like YouTube, and Uber (Chen 2017; Duffy 2017; Rosenblat 2018). Often described as "multi-sided markets," platforms bring together many different kinds of stakeholders, including consumers, workers, advertisers, and regulators (Gillespie 2010; Lingel 2020). However, investigations of working alongside algorithms have so far focused on workers' relationship to algorithms, and neglected other stakeholders. Extending counterpublics theories (Warner 2002; Fraser 1990), we examine over 3,000 online reviews of a labor platform, Care.com, finding that both workers and clients use gossip to create a platform counterpublic that constructs a counternarrative about platform business practices.1 While previous studies suggest that different platform stakeholders have conflicting interests, we find that platform counterpublics draw both workers and clients together to draw boundaries demarcating acceptable platform business practices. Second, we point to the implications of platform counterpublics for the investigation of platform labor and algorithms. Consumer reviews of platforms are absent from critical literature on labor platforms. By bringing together scholarship on counterpublics with critical literature on labor platforms, this paper offers a relational approach to platforms.


Recent studies point towards the possible disadvantages of using hydroxamic acid-based zinc-binding groups in HDAC inhibitors due to e.g. mutagenicity issues. In this work, we elaborated on our previously developed Tubathian series, a class of highly selective thiaheterocyclic HDAC6 inhibitors, by replacing the benzohydroxamic acid function by an alternative zinc chelator, i.e., an aromatic trifluoromethyl ketone. Unfortunately, these compounds showed a reduced potency to inhibit HDAC6 as compared to their hydroxamic acid counterparts. In agreement, the most active trifluoromethyl ketone was unable to influence the growth of SK-OV-3 ovarian cancer cells nor to alter the acetylation status of tubulin and histone H3. These data suggest that replacement of the zinc-binding hydroxamic acid function with a trifluoromethyl ketone zinc-binding moiety within reported benzohydroxamic HDAC6 inhibitors should not be considered as a standard strategy in HDAC inhibitor development.


Identification of cancer-specific target molecules and biomarkers may be useful in the development of novel treatment and immunotherapeutic strategies. We have recently demonstrated that the expression of long noncoding (lnc) RNAs can be cancer-type specific due to abnormal chromatin remodeling and alternative splicing. Furthermore, we identified and determined that the functional small protein C20orf204-189AA encoded by long intergenic noncoding RNA Linc00176 that is expressed predominantly in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), enhances transcription of ribosomal RNAs and supports growth of HCC. In this study we combined RNA-sequencing and polysome profiling to identify novel micropeptides that originate from HCC-specific lncRNAs. We identified nine lncRNAs that are expressed exclusively in HCC cells but not in the liver or other normal tissues. Here, DNase-sequencing data revealed that the altered chromatin structure plays a key role in the HCC-specific expression of lncRNAs. Three out of nine HCC-specific lncRNAs contain at least one open reading frame (ORF) longer than 50 amino acid (aa) and enriched in the polysome fraction, suggesting that they are translated. We generated a peptide specific antibody to characterize one candidate, NONHSAT013026.2/Linc013026. We show that Linc013026 encodes a 68 amino acid micropeptide that is mainly localized at the perinuclear region. Linc013026-68AA is expressed in a subset of HCC cells and plays a role in cell proliferation, suggesting that Linc013026-68AA may be used as a HCC-specific target molecule. Our finding also sheds light on the role of the previously ignored 'dark proteome', that originates from noncoding regions in the maintenance of cancer.


Two of the most striking aspects of social change in recent decades in Latin America have been the rise of indigenist movements and the spread of evangelical Protestantism. To date they have been analysed separately, but this article shows that a comparison of the two in the context of Bolivia can prove highly productive. Although in many respects evangelismo and katarismo are diametrically opposed, there are some striking similarities. They draw their adherents from the same social base, undermine the notion of a homogeneous nation-state and also clearly reject the position of cultural mestizaje at the root of Bolivian state ideology. Thus, at a time when 'hybridised' cultural forms are supposed to be becoming more common in Latin America and around the world, these two social movements explicitly contest hybridity.


Prechlorination is the most common strategy for zebra and quagga mussel control in drinking water treatment plant intakes in the Great Lakes region. Although effective and inexpensive, chlorine can form regulated disinfection byproducts. Two potential alternatives to prechlorination were evaluated for mussel control: peracetic acid (PAA) and EarthTec QZ, a copper-based product. Pilot-scale experiments were conducted to test EarthTec QZ for veliger control and to evaluate the efficiency of PAA and EarthTec QZ for adult mussel control. EarthTec QZ doses of 30, 60, and 120 μg/L as copper ions demonstrated dose-dependent veliger control at 12 C. PAA doses of 5, 10, and 25 mg/L were effective for adult mussel control at the low water temperatures tested (4 C). Results from this study indicate that PAA and EarthTec QZ may be an alternative to prechlorination.


We introduce a family of unsupervised domain-free and (asymptotically) model-independent algorithms based on algorithmic information theory designed to minimize the loss of any (enumerable computable) property contributing to the object's algorithmic content and thus important to preserve in the process of data dimension reduction when forcing the algorithm to delete the least important features. Being independent of any particular criterion and of general purpose, they are universal in a fundamental mathematical sense. Using suboptimal approximations of efficient (polynomial) estimations we demonstrate how to preserve network properties outperforming other (leading) algorithms for network dimension reduction. Our method preserves all graph-theoretic indices measured, ranging from degree distribution, clustering coefficient, edge betweenness, and degree and eigenvector centralities. We conclude and demonstrate numerically that our unsupervised, Minimal Information Loss Sparsification (MILS) method is robust, has the potential to maximize the preservation of all recursively enumerable features in data and networks, and achieves equal to significantly better results than other data reduction and network sparsification methods.


In this paper, the necessity for a high pressure valve is discussed, and a design for such a valve that has been previously presented is described. This valve can be built using simple fabrication techniques available in microsystem foundries. Its fabrication process is also shown. Finally, a brief description of the expected behaviour of the valve is presented.


Purpose
The traditional view of accounting as something that constrains innovation and conflicts with creativity is giving way to a more contemporary belief that accounting can enable innovation and support the innovative process. This paper aims to examine this evolving relationship between accounting and new product development (NPD) by exploring how interactions between NPD participants at various stages of the NPD process help to achieve the appropriate balance between firmness and flexibility which is necessary for NPD success.

Design/methodology/approach
A case study method is adopted. Strong structuration theory (SST) is used to examine the complex interactions that take place between managers at various stages in the NPD process, while the concept of minimal structures is drawn upon to explore how these interactions influence the role of accounting in NPD and help to achieve the desired balance between firmness and flexibility.

Findings
The findings of the study reveal that the use of accounting information in NPD is not necessarily prescriptive or normative but is embedded in the everyday interactions taking place throughout the organisation. Formal accounting information, which could be characterised as "push" information, is prepared and presented by the accountant as a formal requirement of NPD, where it is relied upon by the NPD Steering Committee to make stage-gate decisions in the latter stages of the process. This formal accounting information supports the technical structures within the minimal structures framework. Informal accounting information, which could be characterised as "pull" information, is prepared and used by the NPD team to make decisions from the early stages of NPD, often before the formal process has even begun. This information is regarded as a language or given understanding, and is often not even recognised as accounting information by those using it. This type of internalised language formulates the social structures discussed within the minimal structures framework. Together, the formal and informal use of accounting information, and the interactions implicated therein, provides the organisation with the appropriate balance of firmness and flexibility required to effectively govern the NPD process.

Originality/value
The paper contributes to accounting and innovation literature by using SST and minimal structures to explore interpersonal interactions in an NPD context.


Prediction of major adverse cardiac events (MACE) has recently been a focus of biomedical researches. Identification of the predictors can be useful to select at risk patients for preventive treatment and healthy-life maintenance. The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of soluble thrombomodulin (sTM) to predict the development of MACE after PCI and stent placement. A total of 140 patients (aged 40-70 Years) undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and stent placement who's had inclusion craiteria were enroled. Personal information and medical history were recorded in a form. Blood samples were collected 24 hours after PCI and serum level of sTM was measured. Patients were followed up for 18 months. Coronary angiography was done for patients with chest pain or positive results of non- invasive tests. End point of the study was MACE including death, MI, early or late stent Thrombosis, Target vessel revascularization (TVR) and target lesion revascularization (TLR). mean age of patients was 55.61 and most of them were male (65%)-most common risk factor was dislipidemia (46%) and LAD was most common vessel (69%)- in follow up time coronary angiography was done for 39 patients That 29 of Them (20.7) had MACE 13 target. Lesion restenosis, 10 target vessel restenosis, 2 MI and 3 Thrombosis and one patient dead. There was signification association between, Reference vessels diameter with MACE (2.56 ± 0.25 VS 3.28 ± 0.39 mm P< 0/001). Mean Blood level of sTM in patients who had MACE was lower than mean sTM in other patient but there was not statistically significant (13.99 ±2.65 VS 15.11 ±3.25 ng/ml P=0.070). But among patients who had not current risk factors, mean blood level of sTM in cases with MACE was significantly lower than mean of sTM in cases without MACE.(11.84 ± 1.92 VS 16.46 ± 3.38 ng/ml P= 0.019 ) but only 4 patients were in first group ( patients without current risk factors who had MACE). Despite the result of our study indicate that in patients who had not current risk. Factors, development of MACE after PCI and stent placement associate with low blood level of sTM but introduce of sTM as a predictor, need to supplementary investigations with more number of the patients.


This paper presents a signal pre-processing and feature extraction approach based on electrocardiogram (ECG) sensor signal. The extracted features are used to formulate cases in a case-based reasoning system to develop a personalized stress diagnosis system. The results obtained from the evaluation show a performance close to an expert in the domain in diagnosing stress using ECG sensor signal.


Twenty-seven compulsator-powered railgun experiments have been performed, including a 1.0 MJ discharge at 3510 r/min. In this test, a 724 kA current pulse accelerated an 80 g, aluminum armature to 2.05 km/s, thus exceeding the projectile velocity goal at 73%-rated machine speed. Furthermore, operation with a single gun barrel has been achieved using a parallel path, solid-state closing switch to deliver 132 kA to the railgun injector. The latest data are presented from the rapid-fire compulsator railgun facility. Included is a discussion of the energy transfer, power output, and system efficiency during a 1.0 MJ discharge. Also shown are the injector current, voltage, and di/dt curves for this test which were used in the design of the solid-state closing switch. Results of railgun experiments using the solid-state switch are analyzed. >


Soft polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) elastomers spin coated on silicon wafers are patterned using plasma etching. The elastomers are formed by mixing vinyl-terminated PDMS (prepolymer) and crosslinker containing hydride sites. The elastomers are made softer by adding either excess prepolymer, excess crosslinker, or swelling agent. The different elastomers were etched using reactive ion etching, an old and well established processing technology in the microelectronic and MEMS industry. The etch rate and profiles of the etched surfaces were dependent on the process pressure. The dependence was different for the different elastomers. It was found that at low pressure, the etch rate was dependent on the shear modulus. At high pressures, the etch rate was dependent on the chemical composition of the elastomer. The results for the swollen elastomers were different from those for the nonswollen elastomers. The etch rate was lower and the profiles of the etched cavities were different. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011


We report on the realization of an optical phase noise cancellation technique by passively embedding the optical phase noise information into a radio frequency signal and creating a copy of the optical frequency signal, which is pre-corrected by the amount of phase noise introduced by optical phase perturbations. Neither phase discrimination nor an active servo controller is required due to the open-loop design, mitigating some technical problems, such as the limited compensation speed and finite phase/timing jitter, in conventional phase noise cancellation. We experimentally demonstrate that this technique maintains the same delay-limited bandwidth and phase noise suppression capability as in conventional techniques, but significantly shortens the response speed and phase recovery time. Passive decoupling optical phase perturbation represents a powerful technique in the domains of optical frequency standard comparisons and tools for future optical atomic clocks, which are now under investigation for a potential redefinition of the International Time Scale.


We propose an automatic approximation of the intrinsic manifold for general semi-supervised learning (SSL) problems. Unfortunately, it is not trivial to define an optimization function to obtain optimal hyperparameters. Usually, cross validation is applied, but it does not necessarily scale up. Other problems derive from the suboptimality incurred by discrete grid search and the overfitting. Therefore, we develop an ensemble manifold regularization (EMR) framework to approximate the intrinsic manifold by combining several initial guesses. Algorithmically, we designed EMR carefully so it 1) learns both the composite manifold and the semi-supervised learner jointly, 2) is fully automatic for learning the intrinsic manifold hyperparameters implicitly, 3) is conditionally optimal for intrinsic manifold approximation under a mild and reasonable assumption, and 4) is scalable for a large number of candidate manifold hyperparameters, from both time and space perspectives. Furthermore, we prove the convergence property of EMR to the deterministic matrix at rate root-n. Extensive experiments over both synthetic and real data sets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework.


Storage clusters consisting of thousands of disk drives are now being used both for their large capacity and high throughput. However, their reliability is far worse than that of smaller storage systems due to the increased number of storage nodes. RAID technology is no longer sufficient to guarantee the necessary high data reliability for such systems, because disk rebuild time lengthens as disk capacity grows. We present fast recovery mechanism (FARM), a distributed recovery approach that exploits excess disk capacity and reduces data recovery time. FARM works in concert with replication and erasure-coding redundancy schemes to dramatically lower the probability of data loss in large-scale storage systems. We have examined essential factors that influence system reliability, performance, and costs, such as failure detections, disk bandwidth usage for recovery, disk space utilization, disk drive replacement, and system scales, by simulating system behavior under disk failures. Our results show the reliability improvement from FARM and demonstrate the impacts of various factors on system reliability. Using our techniques, system designers will be better able to build multipetabyte storage systems with much higher reliability at lower cost than previously possible.


A brief overview of the methods commonly used to determine or estimate the black hole mass in quiescent or active galaxies is presented and it is argued that the use of mass-scaling relations is both a reliable and the preferred method to apply to large samples of distant quasars. The method uses spectroscopic measurements of a broad emission-line width and continuum luminosity and currently has a statistical 1 sigma uncertainty in the absolute mass values of about a factor of 4. Potentially, this accuracy can be improved in the future. When applied to large samples of distant quasars it is evident that the black hole masses are very large, of order 1 to 10 billion solar masses, even at the highest redshifts of 4 to 6. The black holes must build up their mass very fast in the early universe. Yet they do not grow much larger than that: a maximum mass of about 10 billion solar masses is also observed. Preliminary mass functions of active black holes are presented for several quasar samples, including the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Finally, common concerns related to the application of the mass scaling relations, especially for high redshift quasars, are briefly discussed.


This paper offers a perspective on how Ilya Prigogine's theoretical ideas rooted in the physical sciences can inform and inspire organization theory and strategic management scholars. To that end, the next section of this paper provides a brief synopsis of some of Prigogine and his collaborators seminal scientific insights in the dynamics of far-from-equilibrium systems in the physical sciences. This is followed by a brief summary of how their insights gleaned from studying the dynamics of far-from-equilibrium systems in the physical sciences may inform the study of social systems. The section following this provides examples of the general applicability of the theory of nonlinear dynamics of far-from-equilibrium systems in economics and organization theory. While Prigogine's theoretical insights have important implications for all levels of social systems, the main purpose of this paper is to examine how his insights inform the role of the strategy-making process in matching the internal and external ecological dynamics that together determine an individual organization's evolution and its longevity. Consequently, in the next to last section of the paper I draw on my own work about the role of strategy-making in organizational evolution to establish conceptual links with the fundamental insights generated by Prigogine and his collaborators. The conclusion section suggests the potential of Prigogine's work to unify the physical and social sciences and to motivate a new philosophy of science.


It is noted that several activities conducted near water stream such as timber harvesting operations, agriculture-based plantation, road construction, housing development and particularly conversion of forest land to other land uses will lead to diminishing in water quality. As water stream contaminated, cost of treating the water will be raised accordingly. Hence, this could take up a significant component of the cost of water supplies. In a case of Malaysia, the companies that operate the water treatment plants have to bear the additional cost on their own. This scenario has brought unfairness to those companies as they not the one who contaminates the water stream. Therefore, an attempt is made to estimate the cost of water treatment with its potential determinants and carry out the simulation analysis. For this study, we examine the impact of timber harvesting activities on the cost of water treatment. The timber harvesting is divided into two practices namely conventional and sustainable timber harvesting practices. In this respect, the assessment of cost of water treatment is also to be known as external costs of timber harvesting activities towards water treatment. In other word, this could be considered as implicit cost for timber companies. The cost of treating water is expressed as a function of the production of water produced (measured in gallons treated), turbidity of the raw water intake [as measured in Nephelometric Turbidity Unit (NTU) and pH] and a dummy variable to represent the influence of the rainy seasons. Based on reports from water treatment plants, every two weeks averages for each item have been calculated. The final set of data consists of 24 weeks which is for every two weeks observations from January 2009 to December 2009 and 6 water treatment plants in Kelantan, Malaysia. All variables used in this study are in natural logarithmic form. We have employed panel data analysis in estimating the cost of treating water function. The result shows that the NTU and cubic meter treated (CT) were significant at the level of 1-percent. Whereas, other factors such as the dummy (DM) variable that measures the rainy season was insignificant. In addition, based on goodness of fit of the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) model, it is clearly indicated that the model is well fitted as it passes the diagnostic test. Simulation analysis reveals that the average increase in sedimentation rates associated with NTU level from 198 to 580 increased the average cost per cubic meter of water treatment to RM1.88 [with Conventional Logging (CL) practices] from RM0.65 (without timber harvesting activities). On the other hand, as sedimentation rates reduced to 388 in Reduced Impact
Logging (RIL) practices, the average cost per cubic meter increased to RM1.26. Simulation analysis indicated that the external cost of CL bear the highest cost of water treatment activities. Hence, the cost per cubic meter of water treatment will reduce by RM0.62 or 49-percent when RIL practices were adopted. These findings demonstrated that the implementation of RIL is preferable in reducing the contamination in water stream from rising erosion and sedimentation rates resulted from timber harvesting.


We are concerned with the problem of detecting an overtaking vehicle using a single camera mounted behind the ego-vehicle windscreen. The proposed solution makes use of 1D optical flow evaluated along lines parallel to the motion of the overtaking vehicles. The 1D optical flow is computed by tracking features along these lines. Based on these features, the position of the overtaking vehicle can also be estimated. The proposed solution has been implemented and tested in real time with promising results. The video data was recorded during test drives in normal traffic conditions in Sweden and Germany.


Abstract We review previous models for the Paleogene tectonic evolution of the Arabian and Eastern Somali basins and present a model based on a new compilation of magnetic and gravity data. Using plate reconstructions, we derive a self-consistent set of isochrons for Chron 27 to Chron 21 (61–46 Ma). The new isochrons account for the development of successive ridge propagation events along the Carlsberg Ridge, leading to an important spreading asymmetry between the conjugate basins. Our model predicts the growth of the outer and inner pseudofaults associated with the ridge propagation events. The location of outer pseudo-faults appears to remain very stable despite a drastic change in the direction of ridge propagation before Chron 24 (c. 54 Ma). The motion of the Indian plate relative to the Somalian plate is stable in direction through Paleogene time; spreading velocities decrease from 6 to 3 cm a−1. Our reconstructions also confirm that the Arabia-India plate boundary was located west of the Owen Ridge along the Oman margin during Paleogene time; some compression is predicted at about Chron 21 (47 Ma) between the Indian and Arabian plates.


Since the 2008 financial crisis, the problem of financial institutions being "too big to fail," or TBTF, has been front and center in the public debate over the reform and regulation of the financial industry. Commentators across the political spectrum decried bailouts of the biggest Wall Street financial institutions, arguing that bailouts would establish too big to fail as public policy. When it was time for reform, legislators tried to address this problem, and even incorporated into the full title of the Dodd-Frank Act that one of the bill's purposes was "to end 'too big to fail.'" Yet more than five years after the financial crash, the biggest banks are 37 percent larger than they were before, and the debate over what to do about the size of financial institutions continues. Policy proposals range from improving resolution mechanisms, to more stringent prudential standards such as leverage limits, to charging fees to eliminate the implicit government subsidy the biggest banks receive, to capping the size of the banks, to instituting a new Glass-Steagall Act. Each approach is hotly contested, with commentators frequently arguing that the proposed solution will not actually fix the problem of financial institutions that are too big to fail. The problem at the heart of the debate over too big to fail is that the popular moniker has come to mean more than the concern that big firms get a government bailout in the event of failure. It captures a variety of concerns with the financial industry: economic, competitive, systemic, firm level, political, legal, and regulatory. This report identifies the full range of reasons reformers might be worried about TBTF. It then describes the various policy options that are most frequently discussed with regard to reforming TBTF, and it connects the specific reforms to the concerns they address. To make progress, reformers and critics alike need to engage in a more precise debate. Critics too often dismiss reforms without fully addressing the concerns reformers seek to address, and when outlining proposals, reformers could be clearer about the problems they seek to solve. Ultimately, people will disagree about what aspects of TBTF are most concerning to them. But the first step toward a more meaningful debate over reform requires greater clarity about the particular concern — or concerns — with big financial institutions and the specific solutions that address those concerns.


The effects of mechanical damage on nutritional compositions of fresh-cut potatoes into half averagely have been investigated. In particular, phenolic compouds, polyphenol oxidase (PPO) activities in 2.5mm (surface layer) and 5.0 mm (inner layer from surface) in depth from injury site of fresh-cut potatoes were monitored during storage for 4 days at 5°C. Some chemical index associated with the ripening stage of the product (titrable acidity and soluble solids content) were also evaluated. As a consequence of mechanical damage, The titrable acidity content of the fresh-cut potatoes drastic decrease (from 0.35% to 0.26%) in cut surface and (from 0.35% to 0.237%) in inner surface 1 day later during storage, soluble solids content from the surface layer potato declined from 4.53 Brix% to 2.24 Brix%. Phenolic compounds content climbed up to 2.839OD280/gFW within 1day and declined to 2.696OD280/gFW after 2 days. PPO activity tend to go up in cut surface(from 20 to 29.6 OD398nmmin-1g-1FW) and inner surface (from 20 to 29.56 OD398nmmin-1g-1FW) 2 days later during storage.


SUMMARY: Spherical protoplast-like bodies were released from the mycelia of Phytophthora cinnamomi and P. parasitica on digestion of their hyphal walls with an extracellular enzyme preparation from Streptomyces sp. in media of appropriate osmotic pressure. Protoplast liberation was observed when using as osmotic stabilizer either sucrose or mannitol (0.2 M-0.8 M); maximum response at about 0.4 M-0.6 M. Although hyphal wall digestion was always extensive, the amount of protoplast release varied widely under seemingly similar conditions. Protoplasts were liberated from the phytophthora mycelium by two mechanisms: bud-like emergence in which cytoplasm was squeezed through a small pore in the wall usually located at or near a hyphal apex; or intercalary hyphal swelling, which consisted of the swelling and rounding off of short hyphal segments whose walls became progressively thinner until they were no longer visible. Both types of protoplast were osmotically sensitive and disintegrated upon dilution of the suspending media.


The original device presented in this paper is designed for coupling a free space optical wave under quasi-normal incidence in- and out of- a highly multimode waveguide with minimum losses. It uses two resonant diffraction gratings at the substrate-waveguide interface that are made of a shallow metal grating, covered with a high refractive index layer. It is shown that the resonant structure can theoretically diffract up to 90 % of the incident energy in and out of the waveguiding layer. The geometrical parameters of the structure and the tolerances can easily be achieved by conventional technology means.


In this paper, we undertake the problem of minimizing system-level energy on chip-multicore processors (CMPs) executing a periodic real-time workload. Our framework has two components: i.) a static phase that selects a subset of cores upon which the workload can be executed without dissipating excessive static power and performs task-to-core allocation, ii.) a dynamic phase that involves managing the selected cores at run-time through coordinated power management framework that exploits Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) as well as multiple idle states offered by modern CMP architectures, to reduce the dynamic power. We explicitly consider the unique traits of the currently available CMP architectures that distinguish them from multiprocessors, including the unique voltage level shared by the cores and its implications for DVFS. We identify the global energy-efficient frequency which indicates the minimum frequency level at which concurrent execution on multiple cores should take place to preserve the efficiency of DVFS. Then we propose two algorithms CVFS and CVFS* to minimize the dynamic energy consumption through concerted use of DVFS and idle states. Our experimental evaluation indicates that our framework can provide significant gains in system energy.


We propose a vision system consists of two cameras, a camera with wide-lens and an omni-directional camera, to acquire an image useful for remote control of mobile robots. Two camera images are combined to enlarge the field of view in horizontal and vertical. In addition, markers fixed on the robot can be observed in the bottom part of the acquired image and used as a reference to recognize position and orientation of the robot in the environment. We implemented and tested a prototype system which has horizontal 200 degree and vertical 180 degree of field of view. In this article, we describe about the configuration of the proposed vision system, detail of image combination process and projection model, and experiments for evaluation.


Manuscript Type: Review. Research Question/Issue: The article starts as a reflection on the criteria that articles submitted to CGIR should respect in order to pass the screening and referee procedures. Beyond that, the article explores the characteristics of all articles, and particularly of best paper and runner up articles, published recently in the journal. As such the article may be a guide for publishing in the journal and for contributing to the development of a global theory of corporate governance. Research Findings/Insights: The article is based on both personal reflections of the two screening editors of the journal, and the analysis of all screening decisions taken in 2009, all articles published in the journal in 2008–10, and best papers and runner up articles in 2007–09. Results shows that (1) the most important reasons for desk rejection are the failure to build the paper on the extant literature addressing international corporate governance, a problematic structure of the paper together with substantial editing problems, and the quality of the data collection procedure; (2) the majority of articles published in the journal use both a legal, finance, and economic theoretical framework, and a quantitative research method to analyze how governance mechanisms control value distribution at firm level; (3) best papers and runner up articles have richer theoretical frameworks, more eclectic research methods, and pay explicit attention to the relevance for theory and practice. Theoretical/Academic Implications: The article emphasizes the importance to balance rigor and relevance to enhance the global understanding of corporate governance. Practitioner/Policy Implications: The results of the study may be of practical importance for the scholars of various disciplines that want to submit articles to the journal. The ideas contained in this article can help them to refine their articles before the submission to increase the rate of acceptance in the review process and hopefully the publication in the journal. Moreover, we underline that moving forward a global theory of corporate governance could assist practitioners and/or policy makers in developing more efficient governance mechanisms.


This paper analyses the main strengths and weaknesses of self-regulation in the Antarctic tourism sector. Ostrom's theory of collective action and especially the design principles for robust management of common pool resources provide the framework for this analysis. The paper notes the rapid growth and diversification of tourism in Antarctica over the past two decades. It examines why formal tourism legislation has been limited because of the complex governance structure in Antarctica. It describes the self-regulation of tourism management that occurs through the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO). The success of IAATO is attributed to the high degree of organisation in the sector, largely because of the perceived benefits of membership. Continued incentives for self-organisation are needed but changing circumstances may lead tour operators to believe that IAATO membership is no longer advantageous. The paper shows that, under current conditions, the Antarctic tourism self-regulatory regime is a robust institution. However, with increasing numbers of tourists and operators the institutional structure may be weakened in the future.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate operational aspects of tuberculin skin test (TST) use in tuberculosis control programs and at specialized Brazilian National Sexually Transmitted Diseases/AIDS and Viral Hepatitis Program health care clinics in priority municipalities for tuberculosis control in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil.

METHODS
This was a descriptive, cross-sectional, epidemiological survey. Data on qualifications/training of professionals administering TSTs, timing of the TST, procedures in cases of loss to follow-up (reading), material availability, and material storage were collected through interviews and technical visits. For the 2008-2009 period, we determined the numbers of screenings in vulnerable populations, of TSTs performed, and of patients treated for latent tuberculosis.

RESULTS
We interviewed 12 program managers in six municipalities. Some programs/clinics did not perform TSTs. Nursing teams administered the TSTs, results were read by non-specialists, and specialization/refresher courses were scarce. The PPD RT23 was stored in 5-mL flasks under appropriate conditions. Insulin syringes were commonly used. Testing was available during business hours, three times a week. In cases of loss to follow-up, telephone calls or home visits were made. Of the 2,305 TSTs evaluated, 1,053 (46%) were performed in indigenous populations; 831 (36%) were screenings in prisons, performed for training; and only 421 (18%) involved contacts of tuberculosis patients or vulnerable populations. Four vulnerable patients and 126 indigenous subjects were treated for latent tuberculosis.

CONCLUSIONS
These priority municipalities showed operational difficulties regarding human resources, materials, and data records.


In this thesis I present a new paradigm in human evolutionary theory: the relevance of track-ways reading (TWR) to the evolution of human cognition, culture and communication. Evidence is presented that strongly indicates hominins were exploiting conspecific track-ways 4 million years ago. For a non-olfactory ape that was a specialized forager in open, featureless wetland environments, they were the only viable natural signs to exploit for safety, orienteering, and recognizable social markers. Due to the unique cognitive demands of reading track-ways, as compared to scent-trails all other animals use to find each other and preferred prey species, social TWR triggered the evolution of a unique faculty for narrative elsewhere-and-when cognition in the hominin mind. Two million years later, this narrative faculty was entrenched enough to enable the rather sudden "explosion" of co-operative Oldowan Lithic Culture that began at 2.6mya. This cultural adaptation was a highly successful response to catastrophic environmental change. Thereafter selection for encephalization to increase neural capacity to store and co-operatively exploit socio-ecological knowledge gained from the hominin narrative faculty (via co-evolving, increasingly efficient modes of intentional communication) drove all further biological and cultural developments in the hominin trajectory towards H.sapiens and behavioural modernity.


Central Turkey represents the only orogenic plateau in the Mediterranean region. Also, the largest closed drainage basin and the largest intracontinental basin of Turkey, the Lake Tuz Basin, is located in this region. Results from a three-dimensional (3-D) computer modeling study of the Lake Tuz Basin indicate a southward-deepening freshwater lake basin with great depth in the Mio–Pliocene, which regressed toward the north during the Plio–Quaternary into the shallow saline lake basin it is today. The spatio-temporal variations of Neogene and Quaternary deposits reflect the main effects of internal forces (isostasy>volcanism>faulting) that were caused by lithospheric slab breakoff and subsequent asthenospheric upwelling under central Turkey. Climatic change played a relatively minor role during these periods and was closely associated with the results of internal forces.


This article examines how the digital is politicizing medium within historical studies. Through a critical evaluation of Mass Observation Online (MOO: the online portal for the Mass Observation Archive), the paper traces how OCR (Optical Character Recognition) has established a new hierarchy in a key archive of British social memory, centred around the typewriter, whose products are much easier to digitize. It shows how a new economy of representation has been created based not on what Observers wrote, but what they wrote with. This has serious historiographical consequences for research drawn from MOO. Typewriting during the interwar period was connected to wider historical forces, including changes in white-collar work, gender roles and cultures of representation. Privileging typewritten material, therefore, is changing how we understand MO materials: from the constitution of the national panel, to the identity of observers, the form and content of materials, and the nature of life-writing. This distortion is not limited to MOO, but the digital has made medium a key site around which primary source materials, archival collections and digital interfaces are being structured. As historical collections are increasingly accessed through digital interfaces, it is argued that increased attention must be paid by historians and archivists to the historiographical dimensions of media and its impact on digital historical collections.


The mechanisms at work in cell volume regulation have been studied in PC12 cultured cells. Results show, for the first time to our knowledge, that the volume readjustment process occurring after application of a hypoosmotic saline is sensitive to amiloride, IBMX and forskoline. The process is also inhibited by quinine hydrochloride and trifluoperazine. Volume readjustment is concomtant with a decrease in K+ and Cl- intracellular levels. The decrease in K+ level can be related to an assymetrical change in the fluxes in and out of the ion as shown by flux kinetics studies using Rb86. These results are interpreted considering that the control of the activity of the ion channel pathways associated with volume readjustment in PC12 cells may implicate the Ca(2+)-calmodulin - cAMP system.


Tony Abbott's spin on the de Niro catchphrase reveals the depths to which we have sunk, writes Anthony Ashbolt. Like Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver, Abbott turned to his sparring partner and said, in an admittedly less than menacing voice, "Does this guy ever shut up?" Abbott's tame version of "You talkin' to me?" sent a jarring note through the debate on Wednesday night and was a reminder of the lack of civility in politics I discussed in my first blog. This is simply not the stuff of genuine debate and in an ordinary contest might have sent Abbott and the Coalition reeling. Judging by Morgan opinion polls in western Sydney reported this morning it had no such effect and, rather, bolstered the claims of some journalists that focus groups had clearly told Liberal advisors that an intervention like this from Abbott would go down well with the electorate. Rudd, the focus groups feel, tends towards verbosity and his wordiness helps switch people off. Disciplines Arts and Humanities | Law Publication Details Anthony Ashbolt, BLOG: Australia's rude crude election debate, Illawarra Mercury, 23 August 2013. This journal article is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/lhapapers/867


The increased frequency in reporting UK property performance figures, coupled with the acceptance of the IPD database as the market standard, has enabled property to be analysed on a comparable level with other more frequently traded assets. The most widely utilised theory for pricing financial assets, the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), gives market (systematic) risk, beta, centre stage. This paper seeks to measure the level of systematic risk (beta) across various property types, market conditions and investment holding periods. This paper extends the authors' previous work on investment holding periods and how excess returns (alpha) relate to those holding periods. We draw on the uniquely constructed IPD/Gerald Eve transactions database, containing over 20,000 properties over the period 1983-2005. This research allows us to confirm our initial findings that properties held over longer periods perform in line with overall market performance. One implication of this is that over the long-term performance may be no different from an index tracking approach.


AIM
To examine the serum from black African patients with acute hepatitis B to ascertain if integrants of viral DNA can be detected in fragments of cellular DNA leaking from damaged hepatocytes into the circulation.

METHODS
DNA was extracted from the sera of five patients with uncomplicated acute hepatitis B and one with fulminant disease. Two subgenomic PCRs designed to amplify the complete genome of HBV were used and the resulting amplicons were cloned and sequenced.

RESULTS
HBV and chromosomal DNA were amplified from the sera of all the patients. In one patient with uncomplicated disease, HBV DNA was integrated into host chromosome 7 q11.23 in the WBSCR1 gene. The viral DNA comprised 200 nucleotides covering the S and X genes in opposite orientation, with a 1 169 nucleotide deletion. The right virus/host junction was situated at nucleotide 1,774 in the cohesive overlap region of the viral genome, at a preferred topoisomerase I cleavage motif. The chromosomal DNA was not rearranged. The patient made a full recovery and seroconverted to anti-HBs- and anti-HBe-positivity. Neither HBV nor chromosomal DNA could be amplified from his serum at that time.

CONCLUSION
Integration of viral DNA into chromosomal DNA may occur rarely during acute hepatitis B and, with clonal propagation of the integrant, might play a role in hepatocarcinogenesis.


With high demand of CNC machine tools accuracy, machines are needed to run-in more than 48 hours before selling. As a key link of last process in mechanical assembly of CNC machine, the importance of CNC machine running-in has been approved to have vital effect on the safety, reliability and lifetime. CNC machine running-in instrument is used for test and run in mechanical parts of CNC machines including screw, guide rail and bearings. The paper presents the function of the CNC machine running-in instrument, principle, hardware circuits, the software flowchart of running-in instrument and part of the servo control program.


Modifications in the muscle acylphosphatase purification procedure enabled us to isolate the enzyme with its sole cysteine in the -SH form; this enzyme form is the most abundant in vivo. Our data demonstrates that the enzyme forms purified by previously reported procedures can be easily derived from a reaction of the SH-enzyme with oxidized glutathione. Probably most, or even all, of these enzyme forms are artifacts due to the purification. The SH-acylphosphatase shows kinetic parameters similar to those reported for the mixed disulfide with glutathione and S-S dimer, except for the specific activity value, which is about twice as much, and the Km, which is reduced.


Abstract Ciprofloxacin Therapy for Neonates and Young Infants: A Clinical Pharmacological Perspective including Pharmacokinetics (PK) and Pharmacodynamics (PD). Severe infection due to Gram-negative bacteraemia increases mortality and long term consequences of morbidity. In Liverpool Women's NHS FT neonatal unit mortality increased from 20% for the more premature babies to 44%. Ciprofloxacin is a synthetic fluoroquinolone prescribed for suspected or proven Gram-negative infection in many neonatal units throughout Europe (25%). At present this drug is not authorised for this population and is prescribed off label. The optimal drug regimen is unknown resulting in a wide range of regimens (5 to 60 mg/kg/day) prescribed internationally. The TINN Consortium 'Treat Infection in Neonates' were funded by a European Union FP7 grant to develop a Paediatric Investigation Plan in line with the EU Paediatric Regulations and European Medicines Agency requirements. This thesis describes a prospective population PK clinical trial as part of the work of TINN, a retrospective clinical outcome study in neonates and infants with late onset Gram-negative sepsis and a framework to facilitate PK-PD research. The pharmacokinetic (PK) clinical trial of ciprofloxacin recruited 64 babies including a minimum of seven recruits representing every four weeks of development. The median post menstrual age in weeks was 35.7 (6.5) (range 24.9 - 47.9). Blood samples (n = 265) were collected at pre-defined informative time points in addition to 165 samples scavenged from clinically indicated blood tests, in total 430. A two compartment model with first-order elimination fitted the data. PK parameters included maximum concentration, clearance, area under the curve (0-tau), apparent volume of distribution and half-life and selected covariates with their inter-individual variability (CV%). Based on adult PD targets the minimum area under the curve /minimum inhibitory concentration (AUC/MIC) ratio 125 was achieved by 85% of this population. Higher AUC24 hour/MIC targets >250 may be required for serious infections yet few (42%) of this population achieved this. The optimal AUC/MIC ratio for neonates is unknown. Clearance increased with post-natal age yet the combined effect of PMA at birth and corrected gestational age had a greater effect on clearance. Clearance reduced by 29% with co-administration of inotropes associated with underlying renal compromise. Monte Carlo simulation demonstrated that the AUC24/MIC 125 was achieved by 90% of neonates <34 weeks PMA administered 7.5 mg/kg/day and 84% of those ≥34 PMA administered 12.5 mg/kg/day. Ciprofloxacin is lipophilic and has good tissue penetration. CSF concentrations achieved a ratio of 0.33 of the serum plasma concentrations. Pharmacodynamic data included a retrospective cohort study over a six year period of neonates with confirmed Gram-negative organisms in blood cultures. Organisms retrieved from the clinical laboratory (n=88) were re-cultured and the MIC ciprofloxacin determined using an E Test. A sub-group were administered ciprofloxacin (n=33); each organism's MIC was compared with the same neonate's clinical outcome. Relatively higher MICs within the susceptible range were associated with a greater risk of treatment failure. These data were not statistically significant due to the low incidence of confirmed Gram-negative bacteraemia (1.3%). The clinical implications are that more intensive dosage regimens may be required or a lower clinical breakpoint subject to further PD and safety data. Too few organisms were available to determine if the MIC increased annually but the incidence of ciprofloxacin resistance in surveillance surface swabs was no higher than for gentamicin. To prepare for a future pharmacogenomic study, DNA scavenged from clinical blood samples were compared to a buccal scrape to evaluate whether this less invasive method is reliable. A substantially larger quantity and higher quality of DNA was obtained from scavenged blood. A sub-group were transfused with leukocyte depleted products for their clinical care prior to DNA sampling. The genotyping of allelic polymorphisms were not affected by the donor's blood sufficiently to affect the genetic fingerprint. This indicates that prior blood transfusions should not be a contra-indication to scavenging blood for pharmacogenetic purposes. The challenges of PK/PD trials in this vulnerable population were explored. The majority were recruited in intensive care and had comorbidity and extreme prematurity. Due to the complexity of critical illness there are limitations to interpreting clinical outcome or safety data from a PK clinical trial design. There were no suspected unexpected serious adverse reactions. Arthralgia was not reported but is difficult to assess in non-weight bearing non-vocal neonates and young infants. A proportionate regulatory model of neonatal PK clinical trials was developed with the Medicines and Health Care Products Regulatory Agency. A framework for pharmacovigilance reporting during critical illness which avoided nuisance reporting was developed. The impact was assessed by an observational case study and review of discharge letters to illustrate the challenge of attributing causality. Individualised therapy may be required in critical illness. The correct dose of an antimicrobial may change daily during the sepsis episode. The inter- and intra-individual variability in parameters is associated with dynamic changes during neonatal development and the effects of critical illness. Further outcome and safety data are required to determine the optimal AUC24/MIC ratio. Paediatric clinical breakpoints specific to each sub-age group of children are required. Individualised therapy may be required to optimise clinical outcome and minimise resistance.


The status of our experimental realization of Bohm's spin-1/2 particle version of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen gedankenexperiment is discussed. This new experiment provides a definitive test of the, as yet, untested strong Bell inequalities. It closes the two widely recognized loopholes associated with previous experiments, and has the interesting new feature that the entangled state exists for milliseconds rather than nanoseconds. The spin one-half particles are two 199Hg atoms in an entangled nuclear spin state with total nuclear spin zero. Measurement of the nuclear spin correlation is achieved by detection of each atom using a spin state selective two photon excitation-ionization scheme.


The new European right to be forgotten (Art. 17 of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) grants EU citizens the right to demand the erasure of their personal data from anyone who processes their personal data. To enforce this right to erasure may be a problem for many of those data processors. On the one hand, they need to examine any claim to remove search results. On the other hand, they have to balance conflicting rights in order to prevent over-blocking and the accusation of censorship.
The paper examines the criteria which are potentially involved in the decision-making process of search engines when it comes to the right to erasure. We present an approach helping search engine operators and individuals to assess and decide whether search results may have to be deleted or not. Our goal is to make this process more transparent and consistent, providing more legal certainty for both the search engine operator and the person concerned by the search result in question. As a result, we develop a model to estimate the chances of success to delete a particular search result for a given person. This is a work in progress.


Arbor Day, historically devoted to tree planting, connected people with trees and left a legacy for future generations. Reports in local and national newspapers describe Arbor Days in 20th century Ireland. They were organised by The Irish Forestry Society, 1904-1923; the Department of Lands 1935-1939 and Trees for Ireland 1950- 1984, two voluntary groups and a state sponsor, in co-operation with local authorities. While the aim was to promote afforestation, in time it fostered an interest in trees in rural and, more particularly, in urban communities, what is now known as urban forestry. Arbor Days followed a similar format with speeches by local politicians and clergy referencing the social, sometimes nationalistic role of trees, followed by tree planting by them and young people. The inculcation of a life-long interest in trees in young people was obvious in each period. Planting in school or college grounds, though evident throughout the periods under consideration, was most pronounced from 1935-1939. In the period 1952-1984, the sites selected in Dublin were located in developing suburbs or large public housing schemes. Arbor Day was adopted by local community groups who also organised tree planting. Arbor Day in Ireland mirrored Arbor Day in the US and Australia. There is little evidence to suggest that Arbor Day furthered afforestation. However, it was a valuable environmental and educational initiative in periods of political and economic change in 20th century Ireland. Arbor Day foreshadowed environmental initiatives current in 21st century Ireland and worldwide.


What is it about India and Varanasi, this holy city on the bank of the Ganga that has made me return, again and again? It is definitely not the freezing cold temperatures during mid-winter, nor is it the dry heat at spring, or the wet and humid months of the monsoon. It also has nothing to do with the bottomless poverty – the beggars halfeaten by leprosy pushing what once was an arm through the open window of my cab. It is not the constant power failures, the dirt, the touts, the diarrhoea, or the souvenirs. What is it then? For ten years I've been asking myself this question without yet having come to know the answer. 'Mother India', I have realised, raises more questions than she provides answers, and it could simply be that it is this infinite roundabout of questions begging for answers that makes some of us return – over and over again.India is a continent of paradoxes and contradictions – desperate poverty and immense wealth, purity and impurity, caste and class, heat and cold, monsoon and drought, mosques and temples, ahimsa and violence, secularism and fanaticism, sacred cows and holy men. Enigmatic customs and practices, raise an apparently never-ending line of questions with either no answers or a multitude of them.In the pages to follow, I will try to shed light on one of the cultural and religious traditions that I find fascinating in this country of contrasts. What I have in mind is the practice of renunciation, a life-style adopted by men and women of all ages. These holy figures, dressed in saffron (some also in white, red or black), have left the material world behind in order to devote their thoughts and actions – their beings – to matters of a higher spiritual nature and, in this way, to prepare themselves to leave their bodies. They have left behind the world of domestic demands, obligations and dependency and entered what is often described as a state of peace (santi) and eternalhappiness.


In Image processing the Image compression can improve the performance of the digital systems by reducing the cost and time in image storage and transmission without significant reduction of the Image quality. This paper describes hardware architecture of low complexity Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) architecture for image compression[6]. In this DCT architecture, common computations are identified and shared to remove redundant computations in DCT matrix operation. Vector processing is a method used for implementation of DCT. This reduction in computational complexity of 2D DCT reduces power consumption. The 2D DCT is performed on 8x8 matrix using two 1-Dimensional Discrete cosine transform blocks and a transposition memory [7]. Inverse discrete cosine transform (IDCT) is performed to obtain the image matrix and reconstruct the original image. The proposed image compression algorithm is comprehended using MATLAB code. The VLSI design of the architecture is implemented Using Verilog HDL. The proposed hardware architecture for image compression employing DCT was synthesized using RTL complier and it was mapped using 180nm standard cells. . The Simulation is done using Modelsim. The simulation results from MATLAB and Verilog HDL are compared. Detailed analysis for power and area was done using RTL compiler from CADENCE. Power consumption of DCT core is reduced to 1.027mW with minimum area[1]. Keywords—Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), Inverse Discrete Cosine Transform (IDCT), Joint Photographic Expert Group (JPEG), Low Power Design, Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) .


Describes dual mode control of walk and manipulation of a prototype hexapod with integrated limb mechanism, named MELMANTIS-1. MELMANTIS-1 uses six-bar linkages with four degrees-of-freedom as an integrated limb mechanism with dual use for a leg and for an arm. Omni-directional drive control is introduced to the hexapod walk with alternative tripod gait. The transformation from hexapod walking style into the combination of dual arms and quadruped platform is introduced. A remote control to handle an object by dual arms is experimented with in a simple application of a trash pitcher.


The learning of hierarchical representations for image classification has experienced an impressive series of successes due in part to the availability of largescale labeled data for training. On the other hand, the trained classifiers have traditionally been evaluated on a handful of test images, which are deemed to be extremely sparsely distributed in the space of all natural images. It is thus questionable whether recent performance improvements on the excessively re-used test sets generalize to real-world natural images with much richer content variations. In addition, studies on adversarial learning show that it is effortless to construct adversarial examples that fool nearly all image classifiers, adding more complications to relative performance comparison of existing models. This work presents an efficient framework for comparing image classifiers, which we name the MAximum Discrepancy (MAD) competition. Rather than comparing image classifiers on fixed test sets, we adaptively sample a test set from an arbitrarily large corpus of unlabeled images so as to maximize the discrepancies between the classifiers, measured by the distance over WordNet hierarchy. Human labeling on the resulting small and model-dependent image sets reveals the relative performance of the competing classifiers and provides useful insights on potential ways to improve them. We report the MAD competition results of eleven ImageNet classifiers while noting that the framework is readily extensible and cost-effective to add future classifiers into the competition.


Based on a one-and-half year experience in a small group setting with drug dependent adolescents the change of group structure, the functioning of the group for its members, the leader's position within the group and the therapeutic relationship are analysed. In its beginning the group develops what can be called a "symbiotic group structure". Its transformation into that of a "working group" is the main task of therapy. The underlying processes can be compared with those of the beginning individuation in early childhood. Ego development begins, as M. Mahler and other modern investigators have shown, with the perception of one's own body and its representation in early ego formation. Using self awareness techniques, as we have done, is in this context a theoretical as well as practical well founded approach to the problems of psychic dependence.


The interplay between erosion and deposition are fundamental characteristics of river basins. These processes result in the delivery, retention and conveyance of sediment through river systems. Although the delivery of sediment to rivers is a natural phenomenon, in recent years there has been increasing concern about the enhancement of sediment loadings as a result of anthropogenic activities. The presence of macrophytes in river channels tends to increase the retention of fine sediment leading to changes in bed composition. However, a complex relationship exists between macrophytes and fine sediment: macrophytes affect the conveyance of fine sediment and are, in turn, affected by the sediment loading. This review deals with these two reciprocal effects and, in particular, summarizes the available evidence base on the impact of fine sediment on macrophytes. Increased inputs of fine sediment appear to have both direct and indirect impacts on the macrophyte community, altering light availability, and the structure and quality of the river bed. The nature of these impacts depends largely on the rate of deposition and the nature of the material deposited. Changes in macrophyte community composition may ensue where the depositing material is more nutrient rich than the natural river bed. Many of the changes in macrophyte flora that occur with increased fine sediment inputs are likely to closely parallel those that occur with increased dissolved nutrient availability. If attempts to manage nutrient inputs to rivers are to achieve their goals, it is critical that fine sediment‐associated nutrient dynamics and transfers are considered. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.