Nestled in lush greenery and an area of outstanding geological interest, the archaeological site of Gaṙni has aroused enthusiasm from travellers over the centuries. By analysing travel literature, this paper shines new light on how travellers' writings can improve our knowledge of Gaṙni. This study is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on archaeological data and the preservation of Gaṙni throughout the centuries. The second part examines the sources used by the travellers to draw up their narrative. The last part deals with their methodology and their approach while contextualising the rise of Archaeology as a scientific field.


Not no faceless Angel is a beautifully reflective work. Originally commissioned by Joy Hill and the RCM Junior Department, the work is a sensitive setting of words by Tanya Lake. The themes of loss and love are articulated through expressive melodic lines and touching imagery. A recording by Polyphony and Stephen Layton is available on Hyperion CDA67708.


Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text. Background: Missed or delayed diagnosis of acute stroke, or false-negative stroke (FNS), at initial emergency department (ED) presentation occurs in ≈9% of confirmed stroke patients. Failure to rapidly diagnose stroke can preclude time-sensitive treatments, resulting in higher risks of severe sequelae and disability. In this study, we developed and tested a modified version of a structured medical record review tool, the Safer Dx Instrument, to identify FNS in a subgroup of hospitalized patients with stroke to gain insight into sources of ED stroke misdiagnosis. Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study at 2 unaffiliated comprehensive stroke centers. In the development and confirmatory cohorts, we applied the Safer Stroke-Dx Instrument to report the prevalence and documented sources of ED diagnostic error in FNS cases among confirmed stroke patients upon whom an acute stroke was suspected by the inpatient team, as evidenced by stroke code activation or urgent neurological consultation, but not by the ED team. Inter-rater reliability and agreement were assessed using interclass coefficient and kappa values (κ). Results: Among 183 cases in the development cohort, the prevalence of FNS was 20.2% (95% CI, 15.0–26.7). Too narrow a differential diagnosis and limited neurological examination were common potential sources of error. The interclass coefficient for the Safer Stroke-Dx Instrument items ranged from 0.42 to 0.91, and items were highly correlated with each other. The κ for diagnostic error identification was 0.90 (95% CI, 0.821–0.978) using the Safer Stroke-Dx Instrument. In the confirmatory cohort of 99 cases, the prevalence of FNS was 21.2% (95% CI, 14.2–30.3) with similar sources of diagnostic error identified. Conclusions: Hospitalized patients identified by stroke codes and requests for urgent neurological consultation represent an enriched population for the study of diagnostic error in the ED. The Safer Stroke-Dx Instrument is a reliable tool for identifying FNS and sources of diagnostic error.


Metabolomics – technology for comprehensive detection of small molecules in an organism – lags behind the other "omics" in terms of publication and dissemination of experimental data. Among the reasons for this are difficulty precisely recording information about complicated analytical experiments (metadata), existence of various databases with their own metadata descriptions, and low reusability of the published data, resulting in submitters (the researchers who generate the data) being insufficiently motivated. To tackle these issues, we developed Metabolonote, a Semantic MediaWiki-based database designed specifically for managing metabolomic metadata. We also defined a metadata and data description format, called "Togo Metabolome Data" (TogoMD), with an ID system that is required for unique access to each level of the tree-structured metadata such as study purpose, sample, analytical method, and data analysis. Separation of the management of metadata from that of data and permission to attach related information to the metadata provide advantages for submitters, readers, and database developers. The metadata are enriched with information such as links to comparable data, thereby functioning as a hub of related data resources. They also enhance not only readers' understanding and use of data but also submitters' motivation to publish the data. The metadata are computationally shared among other systems via APIs, which facilitate the construction of novel databases by database developers. A permission system that allows publication of immature metadata and feedback from readers also helps submitters to improve their metadata. Hence, this aspect of Metabolonote, as a metadata preparation tool, is complementary to high-quality and persistent data repositories such as MetaboLights. A total of 808 metadata for analyzed data obtained from 35 biological species are published currently. Metabolonote and related tools are available free of cost at http://metabolonote.kazusa.or.jp/.


Natural organic matter (NOM) has been shown to strongly influence both reactions occurring at the solid–liquid interface and particle aggregation. Ferrous iron bound to iron oxides, such as goethite, can serve as a reductant towards environmental contaminants. Little is known, however, about how NOM affects reactivity and aggregation of iron oxide nanoparticles in aqueous conditions. Here, the rate of 4-chloronitrobenzene (4-ClNB) reduction is used to assess the reactivity of Fe(II) on goethite, and this reactivity is tracked as a function of increasing NOM concentration, using either 3-(N-morpholino)propanesulfonic acid (MOPS) or bicarbonate buffer at pH 7. Pahokee Peat humic acid (PPHA), extracted from an agricultural peat soil, was selected to simulate the NOM present in groundwater. Generally speaking, the 4-ClNB degradation rate decreases with increasing PPHA concentration. Characterization of the goethite nanoparticles after repeated cycles of 4-ClNB degradation demonstrated that oxidative crystal growth occurred mainly along the goethite c-axis, reaction rates progressively slowed with each cycle, and no new phases precipitated. Finally, bicarbonate buffer, a model for groundwater, dramatically affects both aggregation and reaction rates, with reaction rates an order of magnitude slower and aggregates substantially larger than observed in suspensions prepared using MOPS.


A number of educational critics have recently been arguing that non-English speaking background (NESB) students are not disadvantaged in their participation in Australian education and that special-purpose programs, such as multicultural education programs, are founded on misplaced assumptions. In the first part of this paper we critically examine pre-suppositions that inform these arguments as presented by Williams, Birrell, Bullivant and Mistilis. In order to disprove the fundamental thrust of these new educational critics, we go on in the second part of this paper to marshall evidence in supportof opposing views. This report is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/cmsocpapers/3 Why we need Multicultural Education: A review of the "Ethnic Disadvantage" Debate Mary Kalantzis Bill Cope ■ THE CENTRE FOR MULTICULTURAL STUDIES ■ ■ m UNIVERSITY OF W OLLONGONG CENTRE FOR MULTICULTURAL STUDIES Why we need Multicultural Education: A review of the "Ethnic Disadvantage" Debate Mary Kalantzis Bill Cope Occasional Paper No. 3 October, 1987 Centre for Multicultural Studies, University of Wollongong P.O. Box 1144, Wollongong, N.S.W. 2500 Australia


Abstract Background and aims Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is highly prevalent in adolescents and is associated with various mental health problems. Repetitive NSSI (R-NSSI), as an extreme manifestation of NSSI, is a growing concern and has been proposed as a behavioral addiction. However, little is known about the potential addictive mechanisms of NSSI. This study aimed to examine the mediating effect of emotion dysregulation and the moderating effect of impulsivity using the Interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution (I-PACE) model in adolescents who repeatedly engage in NSSI. Methods A total of 3,915 adolescents (mean age = 13.21 years, SD = 0.87, 57.6% male) were recruited from three middle schools. Relevant questionnaires were used to evaluate childhood maltreatment, emotion dysregulation, impulsivity, and NSSI. Mediation and moderated mediation analyses were conducted separately for adolescents with occasional NSSI (O–NSSI) and R-NSSI to assess the relationship between childhood maltreatment, emotion dysregulation, impulsivity, and NSSI frequency. Results Our study found that childhood maltreatment was directly related to NSSI and indirectly related to NSSI through emotion dysregulation in both the R-NSSI and O–NSSI groups. Furthermore, impulsivity played a moderating role in the relationship between emotion dysregulation and NSSI in the R-NSSI group but not in the O–NSSI group. Discussion and conclusions The findings suggest that a high level of impulsivity and a high level of emotion dysregulation may be important risk addictive factors of NSSI through childhood maltreatment. Strengthening the emotion regulation skills and inhibitory control of adolescents with NSSI would be helpful to reduce their self-injury behaviors and maintain their mental health. This finding also supports the validity of the I-PACE model for evaluating R-NSSI.


This paper presents an overview of different motors used in various large propulsion applications including mining vehicles, railways, and ships. It has been found that mainly induction and synchronous motors are dominating in this application area at present. This paper discusses advantages and disadvantages of such motors used in large traction applications first and then reviews and reports about the suitability of switched reluctance motors (SRMs) emerging as an attractive alternative for large propulsion applications. From the ongoing research, it has been found that SRMs have many merits and will be a better candidate for the propulsion systems of large vehicles.


The article presents the case filed before the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in the recent case of Union Carbide v. Shell regarding US patent infringement by activities in a foreign country. The case involved a patented method for making the industrial chemical ethylene oxide using silver-based catalysts. The seven-year patent infringement suit that ensued saw the victory of Union Carbide after two jury trials. However, the trial judge had said that Union Carbide was not entitled to any damages for Shell's sales of catalysts to its foreign customers. Union Carbide felt that such damages were proper because the only use for Shell's catalysts was to practice Union Carbide's patented method. Both at trial and on appeal, Union Carbide based its claim on a section of the Patent Laws [Section 271(f)], which Congress had enacted in 1984 in response to another court fight about offshore infringement. This section, in relevant part, i.e., 271(f)(2), provides that it is an act of infringement to supply "any component of a patented invention" from the United States with the intent that the component will be employed (combined) outside the United States in a manner that would infringe if done in the United States, if the component is 1) especially adapted for use in the invention and 2) not a staple article or commodity of commerce suitable for a substantial noninfringing use. Before the Union Carbide case, Section 271(f)(2) had been limited to apparatus and composition patents. Union Carbide wanted to extend its scope to method patents. The Union Carbide case is another example of the shrinking size of the world. Courts respond to changing realities, and with the global marketplace and outsourcing, one can expect that offshore infringement will become an increasingly common issue faced by patent owners and the infringers they sue.


The increase number of scientific publications has made digital scientific literature search a difficult task and highly dependent of the researcher ability to search, filter and classify content. Most used scientific literature search engines and portals, such as Google Scholar, Citeseer and ACM, use only simple text-base and citation-base score to rank the query result, and the rank is barely useful. The number of references that a scientific publication has received (known as citations) determines the impact that the contribution has made to the community. Many methods (known as index) to measure or rank researchers are citation based. A fair index for these is important because it is used to evaluate and compare researchers for different purpose, such as university recruitment, faculty advancement, award of grants, among others. The world of science has many fields (Human, Social, Computer Science, etc.). Each field has different structures and publication dynamics. %\ale{Cite newman2001 and Structure and Dyna..}. An example is the number of citations in the top-20 most cited journals in Computer Science is 4 times higher than the top-20 most cited journals in Social Science. Therefore, it is unfair to compare researchers using citation-based metrics without a context, in other words, the community they belong to. Different sizes of communities make currently most used metrics that measure the productivity or impact of researchers an unfair evaluation when comparing researchers from different communities since those with higher productivity are likely to produce more citations than communities with lower productivity. This thesis presents a model and a tool for the detection and evaluation of scientific communities. Moreover, the detection of them will allow the improvement of two important activities in scientific research area: First, the of scientific contributions. Being aware of the existing relations between scientific entities by knowing the communities they are part of, will enable more efficient search mechanisms since the domain of the queries can be narrowed down to particular communities, or can be sparse to different communities to obtain diversity of content. Moreover, having a framework that supports discovering scientific communities will provide the means for a better understanding of the social behavior in the scope of scientific research, enabling us the possibility to identify patterns in developments of projects, research trends, successful research profiles, and so on. Second, the assessment of people (researchers). In InfEur2008 is suggested that numerical indicators must not be used to compare researches or researchers across different disciplines. Since nowadays the boarders between disciplines are blurring, it is hard to define a priori the disciplines to which someone belongs. Ad-hoc and evolving communities can provide a better way for this. The approach presented in this thesis combines different clustering algorithms for detecting overlapped scientific communities, based on conference publication data. The Community Engine Tool (CET) has implemented the algorithm and has been evaluated using the DBLP dataset, which contains information on more than 12 thousand conferences. The results showed that using our approach makes it possible to automatically produce community structure close to human-defined classification of conferences. The approach is part of a larger research effort aimed at studying how scientific communities are born, evolve, remain healthy or become unhealthy (e.g., self-referential), and eventually vanish.


In the system of Ce(NO3)3·6H2O and urea solution during homogeneous precipitation method, hydrothermal homogeneous precipitation coupling method and homogeneous precipitation method with additive, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscope (TEM) were used to study and characterize the product structures and morphologies. The outer electron configurations and the energy conservation theory were used to analyze the reasons for stability of products and valence state change of cerium ions. The results showed that synthesis technics and additives had a great effect on the cerium ion compound valence. The products were orthorhombic Ce2O(CO3)2·H2O with Valence Ш and orthorhombic CeO(CO3)2·H2O with valence Ⅵ by using homogeneous precipitation method and hydrothermal homogeneous precipitation coupling method, respectively. If an additive (triethanolamine or triethylamine) was added into the homogeneous precipitation system, the products changed into a mixture of orthorhombic CeO(CO3)2·H2O with Valence Ⅵ and cubic CeO2 with valence Ⅳ. It showed that triethanolamine or triethylamine had strong oxidizing properties and played a catalyst role in the reaction.


the rat uterus, but when given after isoprenaline the action is reversed and the uterus contracts.2 It may be supposed that in a severe attack of asthma the patient is alarmed and is secreting adrenaline which would normally relax the bronchioles; if an excess of isoprenaline has been taken the effect of adrenaline will be reversed, leading to bronchoconstriction, and making death more likely. The prolonged use of isoprenaline might therefore defeat its own ends. It is not known what effects corticosteroids have on the action of catecholamines. Research on all these questions is urgently needed.-I am, etc., ANNE TOTHILL. Department of Pharmacology, London Hospital Medical College, London E. 1.


The leukodystrophies form a complex group of orphan genetic disorders that primarily affect myelin, the main constituent of the brain white matter. Among the leukodystrophies of undetermined etiology, a new clinical entity called "vacuoliting megalencephalic leukoencephalopathy" (VL) was recently recognized. VL is characterized by diffuse swelling of the white matter, large subcortical cysts, and megalencephaly with infantile onset. Family studies in several ethnic groups have suggested an autosomal recessive mode of inheritance. We mapped the VL gene to chromosome 22qtel, within a 3-cM linkage interval between markers D22S1161 and n66c4 (maximum LOD score 10.12 at recombination fraction.0, for marker n66c4; maximum multipoint LOD score 17 for this interval) by genome scan of 13 Turkish families. Linkage analysis under the genetic-heterogeneity hypothesis showed no genetic heterogeneity. No abnormalities were found in three tested candidate genes (fibulin-1 and glutathione S-transferases 1 and 2).


As a kind of smart material, polydiacetylene (PDA) has a unique conjugated structure, providing a powerful tool for building the diversity of the chemical structure, applying for different sensors. This review focuses on various side chain groups based on PDAs published over the last 3 years, covering urea, melamine, ferriferous oxide and coumarin. Perspectives on the remaining challenges and future developments are also proposed.


Arkansas Global Rice Model (AGRM) a partial equilibrium econometric model is used to assess the impact various proposal on trade liberalization in rice. The analysis is carried over a period of eight years using 2006 baseline. The results are summarized by comparing the impact of various proposals over period of time.


BACKGROUND: OAB is common with a potential negative impact on quality of life. Anticholinergics and β3-mimetics are the first-line medical treatment. This treatment meets only 50% of patients given a lack of efficacy and adverse effects. Used in the treatment of neurogenic overactive bladder, botulinum toxin is now evaluated for the treatment of refractory non-neurogenic overactive bladder. The objective of this work is to review the literature data concerning the efficacy and safety of intradetrusor botulinum toxin injections to treat refractory idiopathic overactive bladder. METHODOLOGY: A systematic literature review was conducted to identify articles published between May 1988 and April 2013 in Medline for the treatment of refractory idiopathic overactive bladder with botulinum toxin. RESULTS: 37 studies with original samples were selected including 8 randomized controlled trials against placebo. The effectiveness of intra- detrusor injections is demonstrated to reduce the frequency, urgency, nighttime urination, incontinence episodes and to improve bladder capacity and quality of life. The most common side effects are incomplete bladder emptying, intermittent catheterization and increased risk of urinary tract infection. A dose of 100 to 150 U of onabotulinumtoxinA allows the best compromise between efficiency and tolerance. Duration of the effects varies between 3 to 12 months and repeating the injections did not seem to affect the efficiency. Injections including the trigone zone do not cause vesicoureteral reflux. The absence of detrusor hyperactivity does not alter the clinical response. CONCLUSION: The detrusor injections of botulinum toxin can be considered as an effective second-line treatment for refractory non-neurogenic overactive bladder. Information on intermittent catheterization risk must be provided. The very long-term effectiveness and the absence of urothelium alterations are still outstanding issues.


OBJECTIVES
Mechanisms underlying relationships among patients' health literacy, diabetes distress, diabetes education, and provider counseling for self-care of chronic conditions are unclear. This study tested these relationships using SEM with adult patients with comorbid diabetes and hypertension in rural WV.

METHODS
Ninety-one participants of a 12-week self-management program reported on diabetes self-care (diet, exercise, blood glucose (BG) monitoring) and related provider counseling.

RESULTS
Based on patient report, providers' recommendations included following a low-fat diet, eating fruits/ vegetables, limiting sweets, a daily low-level of exercise and/or exercise ≥20 minutes three times/week, and BG monitoring. Provider recommendations were shown to be associated with patients' self-care behaviors (r=0.22, p<0.05). Multiple factors directly influenced provider recommendations: diabetes distress, health literacy, and family history of diabetes. A positive association was also noted between prior diabetes education and provider recommendations and diabetes self-care (r=0.44, p<0.001). A negative association was noted between diabetes distress and self-care, but a positive effect on provider recommendations was found. The model demonstrated good fit [CFI=0.94, and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) =0.05].

CONCLUSIONS
To enhance diabetes self-care, providers should consistently provide education on self-care behaviors as well as partner with them to address diabetes distress.


In this work it was determined the effect of fly ash (FA) as bonding material during the fabrication of low thermal expansion porous materials. SiC, fly ash, Vitrified Bonding Material (VBM), and LiAlSiO4 powders were used as raw materials. Porous materials were sintered at 850°C and 950°C after manual milling and mechanical milling in a planetary ball milling at 800 RPM. SEM micrographs showed the presence of porous materials, and it was observed that fly ash particles did not melt at 850°C. However if sintering temperature increases at 950°C, FA starts to melt and it is forming bridges between SiC particles. Thermal expansion values were around 3.0x10-6 K-1. According to these results, it seems that it is possible to have a favorable synergy between FA and VBM to fabricate SiC porous materials with low thermal expansion values.


Fatigue failures of rails often occur at the rail foot, since the geometry of this zone gives rise to stress concentrations under service loads or defects during rail manufacture and installation. In this paper, the fatigue behavior of cracks at the web/foot region of a rail is analyzed numerically. Analytical models in the literature for a semi-elliptical surface crack in a finite plate assume that the geometry of the front remains semi-elliptical during the whole propagation phase and the ellipse axes do not undergo translations or rotations. Fatigue tests show that this is not the case for such cracks in rails. A predictive model for crack growth has been developed by assuming an initial small crack at one probable initiation point between the web and foot of the rail in reference to a service condition loading. SIF values have been estimated by means of the finite element method and the plastic radius correction. The results attained were compared with crack growth experimental data.


High speed machining (HSM) is finding wider applications due to its economic advantages, such as faster material removal rates, and its technological merits, such as improved surface finish. Nevertheless, the application of HSM also brings about some undesirable results. For example, the tool life and surface integrity of a machined component are greatly affected by the large amount of heat generated, but heat dissipation during an HSM has not been well understood. This paper aims to achieve a quantitative understanding of the heat dissipation in HSM using a bar turning configuration. Based on the calorimetric method and utilizing water as the heat transfer medium, the temperature rise in water was measured to determine the fractions of heat dissipated into the chips, the tool and the workpiece during machining. The obtained results show that the chips take the largest portion of the heat generated and this fraction increases with the increase in feed.


Abstract. Aerial Image records the large-range earth objects with the ever-improving spatial and radiometric resolution. It becomes a powerful tool for earth observation, land-coverage survey, geographical census, etc., and helps delineating the boundary of different kinds of objects on the earth both manually and automatically. In light of the geo-spatial correspondence between the pixel locations of aerial image and the spatial coordinates of ground objects, there is an increasing need of super-pixel segmentation and high-accuracy positioning of objects in aerial image. Besides the commercial software package of eCognition and ENVI, many algorithms have also been developed in the literature to segment objects of aerial images. But how to evaluate the segmentation results remains a challenge, especially in the context of the geo-spatial correspondence. The Geo-Hausdorff Distance (GHD) is proposed to measure the geo-spatial distance between the results of various object segmentation that can be done with the manual ground truth or with the automatic algorithms.Based on the early-breaking and random-sampling design, the GHD calculates the geographical Hausdorff distance with nearly-linear complexity. Segmentation results of several state-of-the-art algorithms, including those of the commercial packages, are evaluated with a diverse set of aerial images. They have different signal-to-noise ratio around the object boundaries and are hard to trace correctly even for human operators. The GHD value is analyzed to comprehensively measure the suitability of different object segmentation methods for aerial images of different spatial resolution. By critically assessing the strengths and limitations of the existing algorithms, the paper provides valuable insight and guideline for extensive research in automating object detection and classification of aerial image in the nation-wide geographic census. It is also promising for the optimal design of operational specification of remote sensing interpretation under the constraints of limited resource.


Recent work proposes a family of contextual embeddings that significantly improves the accuracy of sequence labelers over non-contextual embeddings. However, there is no definite conclusion on whether we can build better sequence labelers by combining different kinds of embeddings in various settings. In this paper, we conduct extensive experiments on 3 tasks over 18 datasets and 8 languages to study the accuracy of sequence labeling with various embedding concatenations and make three observations: (1) concatenating more embedding variants leads to better accuracy in rich-resource and cross-domain settings and some conditions of low-resource settings; (2) concatenating contextual sub-word embeddings with contextual character embeddings hurts the accuracy in extremely low-resource settings; (3) based on the conclusion of (1), concatenating additional similar contextual embeddings cannot lead to further improvements. We hope these conclusions can help people build stronger sequence labelers in various settings.


The focus of this research is to develop a general method for estimation of rain intensity for application in various geographical regions. In a world with a changing climate, a high importance is attributed to the potential threats caused by increased temperature and rainfall intensity levels. The rainfall intensity climate is here interpreted by a combination of cloud physical factors affecting rain intensity and further developed by the use of climate data and rain intensity statistics. A formula was developed that estimates extreme rainfall and the frequency of these extremes with durations in the intervals of 5 min to 24 h. The obtained estimates are compared in this article with results from statistical methods for the extreme value analysis of measurements. The comparison shows about 90% of the explained variance. The coefficients in the formula are connected with climatological predictors based on the climatological norms of temperature and rainfall. Rain intensity maps over Sweden were produced using the developed formula. Examples of the function of the formula are also given for six European countries. The application of the formula in connection with the probable maximum precipitation (PMP) is presented, where the return period of extreme rainfall is a key factor. The formula is tested with an assumed increased warming of the atmosphere of 1 to 5 °C, and the result indicates an increase of 5.9% of the rainfall amount per each warming degree in intense rainfall.


Author(s): Soliz, Consuelo | Advisor(s): Bishop, Sonia | Abstract: Fear learning is an adaptive process that ensures the protection and survival of the organism; however, it can turn maladaptive when fear responses are chronically unregulated or overgeneralized to safe stimuli and contexts. Individual differences in personality traits such as trait anxiety have been linked to differences in fear learning and fear regulation. The study of these differences can shed light into the learning mechanisms that may be associated with vulnerability to anxiety and inform prevention and treatment interventions for anxiety. In this thesis, three studies are presented that examine the relationship between individual differences in trait anxiety and conditioned fear responding, as well as responses to aversive unconditioned events. Study 1 examines whether individual differences in trait anxiety are related to variations in fear generalization from a conditioned compound to its unreinforced components and from a conditioned singleton to an unreinforced compound containing this singleton. Study 1 found evidence for both types of fear generalization (as indexed by pupillary dilation and US expectancy ratings) occurring early during learning. However, fear generalization was not modulated by trait anxiety levels. Study 2 investigated whether individual differences in trait anxiety modulated fear conditioned responses during acquisition and extinction when each was conducted over two different contexts, and during extinction recall, conducted 24 hours after extinction. Here, no impact of trait anxiety was observed upon fear conditioned responses at acquisition when it was conducted over two different contexts. Meanwhile, at extinction conducted across two different contexts, low trait anxiety was associated with decreased differential conditioned fear (as indexed by pupillary dilation), while high trait anxiety was associated with increased fear renewal with contextual changes during extinction. At extinction recall, meanwhile, no effects of anxiety and no differential fear recovery were observed. Study 3 examined the impact of trait anxiety on responses to aversive controllable and uncontrollable stimuli, and whether prior experience of control and anxiety impacted responses to subsequent aversive uncontrollable stimuli. Here, although experience of control was associated with a reduced pupillary response to aversive stimulation relative to experience of uncontrollability, anxiety had no effect in modulating these responses. In turn, prior experience of control was associated with decreased pupil responses to aversive uncontrollable stimuli in the high anxious, but not in the low anxious subjects. Interactions of anxiety and the experimental variables were observed in Study 2 and Study 3 only. These results suggested deficits in extinction learning (Study 2) and increased potentiation of aversive responding when primed by an aversive, uncontrollable experience (Study 3), in the high anxious subjects. Failure to observe anxiety effects on fear generalization in Study 1 may have been due to fast learning of the CS-US contingencies, which had a 100% reinforcement rate, and rapid extinction of fear generalization.


The Thackeray Edition proudly announces two additions to its collection: Catherine and The Luck of Barry Lyndon. The Thackeray Edition is the first full-scale scholarly edition of William Makepeace Thackeray's works to appear in over seventy years, and the only one ever to be based on an examination of manuscripts and relevant printed texts. It is also a concrete attempt to put into practice a theory of scholarly editing that gives new insight into Thackeray's own compositional process. Written in 1839-40 for Fraser's Magazine, Catherine was Thackeray's first novel. Although originally intended as a spoof of the 1830s Newgate school of criminal romance, it has intrinsic merit of its own for its cynical narrator and roguish heroine, both of whom harbinger similar creations in Vanity Fair eight years later.


In a study of 60 elderly patients in a general hospital referred for psychiatric assessment, the commonest psychiatric disorders were depressive illness (41.6%) and dementia (35.0%). Patients with depression (mean age 69.5 years) were a younger age group compared with dementia (mean age 75.8 years)--this difference is statistically significant (p less than 0.01). Seven patients with depression were admitted for attempted suicide and 5 were referred because of headache and chest discomfort. The main reasons for referral of patients with dementia were disturbed and confused behaviour. The other psychiatric disorders in the sample were delirium (6.7%), paraphrenia (6.7%), alcohol dependence syndrome (5.0%) and anxiety neurosis (5.0%).


This study examines how Chinese Canadian youth perceive media representation of Chinese people and how that perception affects their identity construction. Drawing on Bourdieu and interview data with thirty-six firstand second-generation Chinese Canadian youth in Alberta, we discuss three themes of symbolic violence that Chinese youth experience in the media field. We argue that media-initiated symbolic violence not only reproduces and reinforces racism institutionally and systemically but also contributes to the evolvement of a racialized habitus among Chinese Canadian youth. It affects Chinese Canadian youth's construction of a positive Chinese identity, and at the same time their perceptions as "real" Canadians in the country that they view as home.


The epithelial cells of the thymus synthesize at least 30 different polypeptides: the thymic hormones. The structure of 4 of them is well known. They are named thymosin alpha 1, thymopoietin, thymulin and thymic humoral factor. Biological functions and secretion regulation of thymic hormones are described as well as the interactions between brain, thymus and endocrine glands. Blood levels and clinical usefulness of thymic hormones are reviewed in different congenital or acquired immunodeficient states and in autoimmune diseases.


In metastatic cancer, the role of heterogeneity at the tumor-immune microenvironment, its molecular underpinnings and clinical relevance remain largely unexplored. To understand tumor-immune dynamics at baseline and upon chemotherapy treatment, we performed unbiased pathway and cell type-specific immunogenomics analysis of treatment-naive (38 samples from 8 patients) and paired chemotherapy treated (80 paired samples from 40 patients) high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) samples. Whole transcriptome analysis and image-based quantification of T cells from treatment-naive tumors revealed ubiquitous variability in immune signaling and distinct immune microenvironments co-existing within the same individuals and within tumor deposits at diagnosis. To systematically explore cell type composition of the tumor microenvironment using bulk mRNA, we derived consensus immune and stromal cell gene signatures by intersecting state-of-the-art deconvolution methods, providing improved accuracy and sensitivity when compared to HGSOC immunostaining and leukocyte methylation data sets. Cell-type deconvolution and pathway analyses revealed that Myc and Wnt signaling associate with immune cell exclusion in untreated HGSOC. To evaluate the effect of chemotherapy on the intrinsic tumor-immune heterogeneity, we compared site-matched and site-unmatched tumors before and after neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Transcriptomic and T-cell receptor sequencing analyses showed that site-matched samples had increased cytotoxic immune activation and oligoclonal expansion of T cells after chemotherapy, which was not seen in site-unmatched samples where heterogeneity could not be accounted for. These results demonstrate that the tumor-immune interface in advanced HGSOC is intrinsically heterogeneous, and thus requires site-specific analysis to reliably unmask the impact of therapy on the tumor-immune microenvironment.


Author(s): Perry, Erin | Advisor(s): Chabinyc, Michael L. | Abstract: Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have captured the focus of the photovoltaic field due to their ease of fabrication and high power conversion efficiencies of ~22%. In PSCs, the perovskite active material is sandwiched between electron and hole transport layers that serve to extract photogenerated charge carriers and to avoid direct contact between the perovskite layer and metal electrodes in order to prevent degradation. Organic semiconductors are attractive candidates for transport layers because of their low temperature processing and scalability. The major obstacle to use of organic semiconductors in PSCs is their low carrier mobility and carrier concentration, which cause them to act as a parasitic series resistance in devices. In order to overcome transport issues, doping of organic transport layers is performed to passivate trap sites and increase the concentration of free carriers.To date, there have been few reports on understanding how the presence of small molecule dopants can influence the perovskite active layer. Small molecule dopants that have been developed to dope organic semiconductors are also candidates for charge transfer to MAPbI3. The impact of direct charge transfer from small molecules to MAPbI3 was investigated as a model system to provide a means to understand the more complex heterointerface of doped organic blends at perovskite surfaces. We studied the impact of surface doping on passivation of electron traps in MAPbI3. Using spectroscopy and photoconductivity measurements, we determined that at moderate degrees of doping the Fermi level shift will passivate this recombination center. At high degrees of doping, there is an overabundance of charge beyond what is necessary to passivate surface traps, creating an additional pathway for bimolecular recombination. In addition, excessive charge leads to chemical damage of the surface of MAPbI3, resulting in the release of mobile I- ions. Given these design principles, the impacts of doping the organic electron transport layer on solar cell performance was investigated. The power conversion efficiency of PSCs showed a rise and fall in performance with increasing doping concentration of the electron transport layer, consistent with observations from surface doping. Optimal solar cell performance was observed at moderate doping concentrations of 1 wt%. At this doping concentration, evidence of trap passivation was observed by higher open circuit voltages (VOC) and longer carrier lifetimes. Numerous studies in literature on the impact of doping the electron transport layer have identified a range of factors influencing performance, including changes to carrier mobility, resistance mismatch, energy level alignment, and morphology. This work indicates that the impacts of interfacial charge transfer on surface recombination should be added to this list of considerations.


The frequency distributions of refractive index and the concentrations of ten elements in 204 glass specimens received as evidence in casework were evaluated. These data were used to estimate the probability of randomly selecting, from a general population, a glass specimen that is indistinguishable in all measured characteristics from a given glass specimen. The probability of two unrelated glass specimens having indistinguishable elemental compositions and refractive indices is calculated and lies between the extremes of 10−5 and 10−13. For each of the 20,706 pairwise comparisons of the 204 specimens in this study, the two specimens are analytically distinguishable. The use of highly discriminating analytical methods for the comparison of trace evidence and the corresponding low probability of two unrelated glass specimens being indistinguishable eliminates the need to collect extensive databases for the purpose of making exact probability calculations. The approach used here can be applied to other highly discriminating parameters and trace evidence sample types.


We investigated the effect of barnidipine hydrochloride, a Ca2+ channel blocker, on the glomerular level of mRNA expression of platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) B-chain and transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1 in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) with reverse transcription and polymerase chain reaction. Thirteen-week-old SHR were provided with food containing barnidipine (0.6 mg/g of food, average dose during treatment: 53 mg/kg of body mass/day) for 3 weeks. A stable reduction in systolic blood pressure relative to that of age-matched control SHR was recorded after week 1 of therapy. Although no renal histological changes were observed after 3 weeks of treatment with barnidipine, the level of expression of PDGF B-chain mRNA in glomeruli was significantly reduced relative to that in control SHR. The glomerular level of TGF-β1 mRNA expression was not affected by the treatment. Treatment with barnidipine significantly reduced the excretion of urinary protein. Thus, the stable reduction in systemic blood pressure by barnidipine is associated with a reduction in PDGF B-chain mRNA expression in the glomerulus and reduction in urinary protein excretion in SHR.


Liquid Air Energy Storage (LAES) provides large scale, long duration energy storage at the point of demand in the 5MW/20MWh to 100MW/1,000MWh range. LAES combines mature components from the industrial gas and electricity industries assembled in a novel process and is one of the few storage technologies that can be delivered at large scale, with no geographical constraints. The system uses no exotic materials or scarce resources and all major components have a proven lifetime of 25+years. The system can also integrate low grade waste heat to increase power output. Founded in 2005, Highview Power Storage, is a UK based developer of LAES. The company has taken the concept from academic analysis, through laboratory testing, and in 2011 commissioned the world's first fully integrated system at pilot plant scale (300kW/2.5MWh) hosted at SSE's (Scottish & Southern Energy) 80MW Biomass Plant in Greater London which was partly funded by a Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) grant. Highview is now working with commercial customers to deploy multi MW commercial reference plants in the UK and abroad.


Date Presented 4/21/2018
 We examined the impact of an 8-week yoga intervention on quality of life and fall risk factors for people with diabetes. All outcome measure scores significantly improved for participants randomized to the yoga intervention.
 Primary Author and Speaker: Arlene Schmid
 Additional Authors and Speakers: Matthew P. Malcolm, Karen E. Atler, Laura A. Grimm, Tara Klinedinst, Carol Chop
 Contributing Authors: Jen Portz


In this study, industrialisation has been evaluated in the context of social change theory. Industrialisation as a period of social change is the source of public library development. The public library has emerged as a result of the changes in educational and cultural structure caused by industrialisation. Public libraries emerged as supporting elements of basic and adult diffused education effort. The change in thoughts, attitudes and values by the effect of urbanisation made public libraries a part of the new culture that is social life. The public library is a product of social change.


Building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) are becoming a viable solution for clean on-site energy production and utilisation to combat the existing energy crisis. In tropical climates, although rooftops are ideal for photovoltaic (PV) module integration, the available area may be insufficient to meet building energy demand due to the recent high-rise nature of urban buildings, causing a requirement for the utilisation of facades. However, the high angle of solar elevation means that facades are unfavourably oriented towards receiving incident solar irradiation. In addition, the issue exists of high solar heat gains into built spaces. This paper proposes a method to utilise horizontally inclined photovoltaic modules integrated on solar shading devices in order to combat these issues of unfavourable inclination and solar heat gains in commercial office buildings in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Various strategies are introduced and evaluated in terms of their inclination angles and the distance between installations. The results are analysed in terms of PV generation capabilities in order to determine which strategies are capable of producing the most electricity. The results show that horizontal inclinations of PV on facades are capable of generating nearly 8% more electricity as a percentage of the building energy consumption when compared with traditional vertical PV facade installations. . Keywords— building integrated photovoltaics; optimisation; photovoltaic integrated shading systems


We demonstrate high-performance sequentially solution-processed organic photovoltaics (OPVs) with a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 5% for blend films using a donor polymer based on the isoindigo-bithiophene repeat unit (PII2T-C10C8) and a fullerene derivative [6,6]-phenyl-C[71]-butyric acid methyl ester (PC71BM). This has been accomplished by systematically controlling the swelling and intermixing processes of the layer with various processing solvents during deposition of the fullerene. We find that among the solvents used for fullerene deposition that primarily swell but do not re-dissolve the polymer underlayer, there were significant microstructural differences between chloro and o-dichlorobenzene solvents (CB and ODCB, respectively). Specifically, we show that the polymer crystallite orientation distribution in films where ODCB was used to cast the fullerene is broad. This indicates that out-of-plane charge transport through a tortuous transport network is relatively efficient due to a large density of inter-grain connections. In contrast, using CB results in primarily edge-on oriented polymer crystallites, which leads to diminished out-of-plane charge transport. We correlate these microstructural differences with photocurrent measurements, which clearly show that casting the fullerene out of ODCB leads to significantly enhanced power conversion efficiencies. Thus, we believe that tuning the processing solvents used to cast the electron acceptor in sequentially-processed devices is a viable way to controllably tune the blend film microstructure.


Jane Jacobs's concept of mixed use, developed in her 1961 work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, can be seen not only as an attack on the functionalist separation of uses, but as a challenge to the split between domestic and public life. Mixed use implicitly subverts notions held deeply since the 19th century—the home as "refuge" and its corollary, the street as "dangerous"—with all of the gender associations that have historically been embedded in this imagery. While gender is not an explicit theme in this work, Jacobs's critique of modern planning and zoning implicitly addresses the issue of separate gendered spheres of public and private life, alluding to an alternative, inclusionary vision of public life.


We numerically calculated the transient temperature distribution of flowing subcooled liquid nitrogen in a high-Tc superconducting (HTS) model cable when faults occur. The coolant and cable core temperatures were calculated by numerically solving the heat equation using the finite difference method. In the calculation, we assume that the heat transfer coefficient between the flowing subcooled liquid nitrogen and the cable core surface is described by the Dittus-Boelter correlation. The calculation results reveal that the coolant temperature increases even after the fault has been removed and that it continues increasing until fresh coolant arrives from the inlet. The calculated temperature profile of the coolant agrees well with measured data obtained by conducting over-current tests on a model HTS cable. Using our computational code, we also evaluated the maximum HTS cable lengths that ensure that the coolant remains in the liquid phase for certain fault currents for an HTS model cable.


Objectives: In this study, we investigated the feasibility of mentalization-based treatment (MBT) for patients with comorbid substance use disorder (SUD) and borderline personality disorder (BPD). No published study has ever specifically looked at MBT for these patients. Such individuals are known to have a very poor prognosis and harbor much pain and misery. Moreover, few randomized controlled trials exist on psychotherapy efficiency for patients with comorbid substance use disorder and borderline personality disorder. There is an urgent need for more knowledge on treatment for this patient group. Design: A pilot project within a naturalistic clinical setting with longitudinal data collection during treatment and at follow-up. Eighteen female patients attended a pilot project and participated in up to 36 months of treatment, according to the manuals. Patients were measured on primary (pre/post) and secondary (longitudinal) outcome measures before treatment, every six months during treatment, at the end of treatment, and at follow-up approximately two years after treatment.
Methods: Statistical analyses of repeated outcome measures (GSI, CIP, GAF, WSAS, and RSES) and of pre/post measures (Axis I and II diagnosis) were performed with linear mixed models, and Cohens d was calculated. Results: Significant improvements on primary and secondary outcome measures were demonstrated, with effect sizes ranging from moderate to large. With respect to primary outcome, these SUD/PD patients were almost fully recovered from their SUD at follow-up (a predicted score of 0.2 Axis I SUD diagnosis at follow-up in comparison with a score of 1.8 at baseline). Conclusion: MBT as performed in this pilot project indicates promising results for patients with (mostly borderline) PDs and comorbid SUDs. Performing RCT studies is warranted.


We present the results of an experimentation with dynamic features for breast cancer detection in Contrast-Enhanced Magnetic Resonance of the female breast. In order to understand how good the various features are we built a dataset from real dataset with proven histological diagnosis. We compared human-readable features, commonly used in the clinical practice, with a non-linear artificial neural network trained with a double k-fold cross validation. The results show that the ANN reaches very good results when two specific dynamic features are used. The particular validation procedure used in this experimentation allows us to better understand the discriminative power of the various approaches and move toward a better classifier that might be used in the clinical environment. Breast cancer, in fact, is the second form of diagnosed cancer among women living in the western countries and any improvement in its diagnosis would lead to a lower mortality rate.


Skin cancer is a major public health problem around the world. Its early detection is very important to increase patient prognostics. However, the lack of qualified professionals and medical instruments are significant issues in this field. In this context, over the past few years, deep learning models applied to automated skin cancer detection have become a trend. In this paper, we present an overview of the recent advances reported in this field as well as a discussion about the challenges and opportunities for improvement in the current models. In addition, we also present some important aspects regarding the use of these models in smartphones and indicate future directions we believe the field will take.


Because in the learning process at the Faculty of Computer and Information science, Moodle web application is used and when it is accessed via web browser on mobile device, large amount of irrelevant information for user is transferred and as nowadays almost every mobile application uses data transfer for their normal operation, it is important that the amount of data transferred is reduced.
This mobile application was developed, to solve the problem with large amount of transferred data, which in addition to the Moodle web application log in, it also allows advertising. Later upgrades could include other functionalities important for students. Because this mobile application uses advertising it was necessary to create web application to allow creation and managing this advertising messages and web services to access them.
This thesis is divided into three parts. In the initial part the mobile application development is described which allows the Moodlee web application log in. This part also describes how advertising messages are sorted. The second part describes web application for adding and managing advertisement messages and how is for its safety taken care of. The third part describes how web services are made and how do they work.


Pavel Zhdanov - Candidate of Science in Politics, Specialist of the Department of Analytics and Monitoring of the State Autonomous Sociological Research Center. E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com Trostyanskaya - Candidate of Science in Politics, Head of the Analytical Research Department of the State Autonomous Sociological Research Center. E-mail: trostyanskaya@ sociocenter.infoAndrey Barsukov - Head of the Department of Analytics and Monitoring of the State Autonomous Sociological Research Center. E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com Polikhina - Acting Director of the State Autonomous Sociological Research Center. E-mail: email@example.com: 50a/8, Zemlyanoy Val Str., Moscow, 109004, Russian Federation.The article presents the results of studying the competencies of university leaders, including those that ensure university effectiveness in the global academic marketplace. Rector appointment and selection procedures are analyzed across countries. The study uses pre-collected data on careers of 93 university leaders, of which 52 are in charge of Russia's leading universities (including 21 Project 5-100 institutions) and 41 govern foreign universities ranked in the top 100 of the QS World University Rankings® 2018. The following parameters are analyzed as constituent parts of university leaders' rectorship experience: working abroad experience, business work experience as Head of Department or higher, academic work experience including top management positions, scientometric indicators, work experience in public service, age, years of teaching and research experience, years of university leadership experience, years of rectorship at another university. Significant differences have been revealed in the competencies possessed by university leaders in Russia and abroad. The rectors of top foreign universities have a more diverse experience in varied fields necessary to ensure university effectiveness, and they also demonstrate higher career mobility.


Background: Chronic wounds continue to be a global concern that demands substantial resources from the healthcare system. The process of cutaneous wound healing is complex, involving inflammation, blood clotting, angiogenesis, migration and remodeling. In the present study, commercially available alginate wound dressings were loaded with heparin. The purpose of the study was to enhance the angiogenic potential of alginate wound dressings and analyze the antibacterial activity, biocompatibility and other relevant properties. We also aimed to conduct some molecular and gene expression studies to elaborate on the mechanisms through which heparin induces angiogenesis. Methods: The physical properties of the hydrogels were evaluated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Swelling ability was measured by soaking hydrogels in the Phosphate buffer at 37 °C, and cell studies were conducted to evaluate the cytotoxicity and biocompatibility of hydrogels in NIH3T3 (fibroblasts). Real-time PCR was conducted to check the molecular mechanisms of heparin/alginate-induced angiogenesis. The physical properties of the hydrogels were evaluated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Results: FTIR confirmed the formation of heparin-loaded alginate wound dressing and the compatibility of both heparin and alginate. Among all, 10 µg/mL concentration of heparin showed the best antibacterial activity against E. coli. The swelling was considerably increased up to 1500% within 1 h. Alamar Blue assay revealed no cytotoxic effect on NIH3T3. Heparin showed good anti-microbial properties and inhibited the growth of E. coli in zones with a diameter of 18 mm. The expression analysis suggested that heparin probably exerts its pro-angiogenetic effect through VEGF and cPGE. Conclusions: We report that heparin-loaded alginate dressings are not cytotoxic and offer increased angiogenic and anti-bacterial potential. The angiogenesis is apparently taken through the VEGF pathway.


The bankruptcy forum has become a marketplace for claims. Those who made the loans are far removed from the players that sit at the negotiating table in the modern corporate reorganization. Instead of stock being traded on the floor of an exchange, claims are traded in bankruptcy court. Investors become residual owners of firms outside of bankruptcy by buying stock. Inside of bankruptcy they do it by buying debt. In both cases, it is a world of professional traders, arbitrageurs, and corporate raiders. Long passed is the time when we could usefully debate whether claims-trading in bankruptcy was a good or a bad thing. We should accept that it has become a fundamental feature of bankruptcy. But it is naive to think that this new market, the bankruptcy exchange, should be unregulated. All markets are regulated. Whether one is a merchant who seeks to sell wool in the twelfth century or a farmer who wants to sell grain in the nineteenth, being subject to regulation is inevitable. Simply providing that the market is open on Wednesdays, but not Saturdays, is a form of regulation that works to the advantage of some and to the disadvantage of others. Regulation of the bankruptcy exchange is similarly inescapable. Every decision in the bankruptcy case affects the bankruptcy exchange, for better or worse. Scheduling a date for a cramdown hearing has the effect of putting an exercise date on an option contract. Every decision a bankruptcy judge affects trading on the bankruptcy exchange - whether she wants it to or not. The question is never whether there should be regulation, but rather what form it should take. This paper reviews the principles that should be at work in regulating the bankruptcy exchange.


A growing literature on evolutionary economic geography concludes that regional industrial evolution is path-dependent and is determined by the pre-existing industries. This study applies the co-occurrence approach to calculate the production relatedness and portrays the production space and then examines the impact of production relatedness on regional industrial evolution. The findings report that production relatedness does underscore the regional structure change in China but shows significant regional differences in the evolution path. The coastal region has strong tendency of path dependence in its industrial evolution, while North West and South West break the path-dependent trajectory and transition into high productive sectors distant from their own production network. The results suggest that national policies can play its crucial role in creating new paths in China's regional development. Institutions matter to allow the significant role of industry relatedness in driving regional industrial evolution.


This study discusses change in the small-scale topography of Kujukuri coastal dune located in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. Throughout the study, we investigated the short-term formation mechanism of the dune. Previous studies dealt with these dunes because they represent large coastal dune in Japan and their fast change allows us to examine the dynamics of coastal dunes. This study focuses on a relatively short time period. Studies on topographic change during a short period has gained recent attention because of the increased availability of high-resolution topographic data from newly advanced techniques such as unmanned aerial system-based structure-from-motion (UAS-SfM) photogrammetry and terrestrial laser scanning (TLS). Our detailed data were acquired through UAS-SfM photogrammetry, and aerial photographs of the past 70 years were also used for observing general topographic change. We targeted dynamics of sand dunes with the natural state and tried to clarify short-term topographic change due to sand movement.


Drama is Conflict.
Every filmmaker knows this truism well. Most films revolve around a conflict situation.

Those of us that teach screen production in academia are also aware that conflict in student projects is often based on some personal trauma.

How are we to deal with these traumatic narratives as supervisors?

In this paper we offer three perspectives on this question along with one detailed example.

1. For some students trauma provides the very reason for the story. Filmmakers that belong to marginal social groups are a good case in point. Trauma associated with marginal social existence is most often the driving force for stories in this genre. Students in this group come to us as a gale force wind and may well leave us feeling that there is little we can do for them as supervisors except to behold the unfolding of their stories. Such students tend to be rare in academia.

2. For most students, trauma is the reason why a story cannot be told. We recognize these students in our workshops by their blockages, silences and avoidance of narratives. They often present themselves in scriptwriting classes as having little to say even when the trauma in question is evident to all. It is tempting to think that, as supervisors, we can unlock these personal blockages and uncover the underlying writing potential. In this perspective scriptwriting classes could be considered as therapeutical sessions which bring healing and comfort to the suffering scriptwriter-to-be. The only problem with this scenario is that screen production supervisors are generally not analysts and, for many good reasons, should not act as if they are analysts.

3. There is yet another group of students for whom the urge to speak their personal trauma is as evident as their attempts to generalise it. We recognized these students, by their need to tell their story, on the one hand, and by their tendency to find trauma everywhere, on the other hand. Students in this category present us with stories that contain most imaginative and creative transformations around some personal trauma invoking negations/ inversions, double negations, displacements and symbolic transformations.


Conjugate Heat Transfer (CHT) analysis allows for the simulation of heat transfer between solid and fluid domains by exchanging thermal energy at the solid/fluid interfaces. This exchange is especially important for MPD thruster analysis due to the high temperature plasma (∼5000K) heat transfer exchange between the plasma/Cathode and plasma/Anode electrode interfaces. Proper numerical modeling captures both the large electromagnetic current and magnetic field gradients, as well as, the heat transfer thermal gradients, that occur due to large thermal and electrical diffusion coefficient differences at the plasma/solid interface. Although MPD-CHT models are typically not included, attention to such numerical detail yields an improved MPD thruster design process and provides guidance to determine external heat transfer cooling requirements to maintain proper operating parameters. The non-linear coupled finite element formulation herein provides increased stability and presents a computational framework strategy for modeling and analysis of self-field and applied field MPD thrusters considering the highly non-linear, multi-disciplinary, and temperature dependent property requirements of the integrated solid/fluid MPD problem domain. A single numerical modeling design variable (OMEGA) is also introduced that combines experimental and numerical parameters, with reference plasma thermal properties.


Highly nutritious rice production will be benefited with the improvement of amino acid content (AAC) and protein content (PC). The identification of quantitative trait loci (QTLs) associated with the PC and AAC of rice grains could provide a basis for improving the nutritional value of rice grains. Here, we conducted QTL analyses using recombinant inbred lines from the cross between indica (Milyang 23 or M23) and japonica (Tong 88-7 or T887) rice varieties, afterward employing genotyping-by-sequencing to obtain a high-density genetic map. A total of 17 and 3 QTLs were detected for AAC and PC, respectively. Among them, two QTLs associated with more than 10 AACs, qAAC6.1 and qAAC7.1, were identified for the first time in this study. Each favorable allele that increased the AAC of the two QTLs was derived from M23 and T887, respectively. Allelic combination of qAAC6.1M23 and qAAC7.1T887 showed significantly higher content of associated amino acids (AAs) than other allelic combinations. Near-isogenic line (NIL) possessing qAAC7.1T887 with M23 genetic background had significantly higher AACs than both parents. These results indicate that the pyramiding of QTLs would be useful in developing brown rice with a high AA and protein content.


Historically, children's safeguarding policy and practice in the UK have focused on individual and family-level explanations of abuse and neglect, with relatively little attention given to children's overall well-being or the role played by neighbourhood conditions in shaping it. As a result, community-oriented practice, designed to improve the neighbourhood conditions in which many of the families who come to the attention of child welfare agencies live, has largely remained on the margins of mainstream provision for safeguarding children and young people.

However, more recent policy developments, including Every Child Matters and the Children's Plan, do highlight the influence of children's wider circumstances on their well-being, providing the foundations for more holistic approaches to service provision. Nevertheless, it is argued that these policy developments are unlikely to be successful unless they are accompanied by fundamental changes within the culture of many agencies and professions. Using a combination of ecological theory and practice examples, some of the main strands of the changes required (developing a culture of listening to children and adults; recognising and supporting the safeguarding activities of local people; and promoting partnership approaches to extending local provision) are critically examined.


The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has now infected six million people and is responsible for nearly four hundred thousand deaths. We review the potential role of the lung ultrasound to evaluate its benefits and potential roles to compare it to the current gold standard of computed tomography. A literature search was carried out utilizing electronic search engines and databases with COVID-19. Keywords related to the lung ultrasound (LUS) were used to refine this search – only the relevant articles found are cited. This review showed that there exists a strong correlation between the CT and LUS scan in COVID-19. Prominent features include the vertical B-lines, thicker pleural lines, and subpleural consolidation. Potential roles include reducing transmission between health-care workers and monitoring the progress of the disease. However, the current research is scarce compared to well-established imaging modalities, and as such, there is a necessity for more research to confirm the findings of this review.


Considering advice from others is a pervasive element of human social life. We used the judge-advisor paradigm to investigate the neural correlates of advice evaluation and advice integration by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging. Our results demonstrate that evaluating advice recruits the "mentalizing network," brain regions activated when people think about others' mental states. Important activation differences exist, however, depending upon the perceived competence of the advisor. Consistently, additional analyses demonstrate that integrating others' advice, i.e., how much participants actually adjust their initial estimate, correlates with neural activity in the centromedial amygdala in the case of a competent and with activity in visual cortex in the case of an incompetent advisor. Taken together, our findings, therefore, demonstrate that advice evaluation and integration rely on dissociable neural mechanisms and that significant differences exist depending upon the advisor's reputation, which suggests different modes of processing advice depending upon the perceived competence of the advisor.


Speaking ability is an important factor for people in learning a language, but there are many difficulties faced by the eighth grade students of SMP DU 1. There are lack of vocabulary, motivation, and self confidence. Besides, only 40% of 29 students (11) can pass the target score of KKM (75). Therefore the researcher used role play technique to solve the students' problems and to improve the students' speaking ability. There are three kinds of role play, but this research used multiple role play.

This research used Classroom Action Research (CAR) based on Kemmis and McTaggart which consists of planning, acting, observing and reflecting. This research used descriptive analysis which is supported by the quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative data obtained by analyzing the result of students' achievement test. Then, the qualitative data obtained by analyzing from the result of observation as the students' involvement.

The finding of this research indicated that the implementation of role play technique was successful. From the result of test in cycle, it showed that 26 of the students or 89% of the 29 students could pass the target score. Besides, the result of observation showed that by using role play technique, the students were actively involved during teaching and learning process. However, the improvement of speaking skill through role play could be obtained when role play were conducted under the following situations :1)The role play consisted of small groups of students (each group ideally consisted of two or three students), 2)The explanation of the material and the direction of role play were slowly delivered, 3)The teacher gave role orientation because it made the students easier to understand the task, 4) The students brought their dictionary to help them translate the expressions.

Key words : Speaking, Teaching speaking, Role play, Multiple role play.


The aims of this research are to apply Senaru forest  rhizosphere on Kabupaten Lombok Barat West Nusa Tenggara as Mycorrhiza inoculants for Gyrinops versteegii germination and growth. Rhizosphere sample was taken from ten sampling spot on Senaru forest between Latitude: 08 o 18.808' S – 08 o 19.174' S and Longitude: 116 o 24.138' E – 116 o 24.181'E. This study employed Factorial Experiment Design with 2 Factor including: Medium Composition (M) and Mychorizza Inoculant (I). There were 5 media composition: M1 (sand), M2 (soil:sand = 1:2), M3 (soil:sand = 1:1), M4 (soil:sand = 2:1), M5 (soil). There were 2 types of Inoculation: I1 (without inoculant) and I2 (innoculant from senaru Rhizosphere). Growth parameters observed in this study were: germination percentage, stem length, stem diameter and root colonization. Germination percentage of G. versteegii seeds in all growth media are below 60 % which could be classified as low germination rate. Also germination from media without rhizosphere is higher than germination from media with rhizosphere. On the other hand, G. versteegii growth on rhizosphere media is slightly higher than growth of G. versteegii on media without rhizosphere based on stem diameter and length measurement. It tends that medium composition with higher sand proportion tended to gives better germination and growth rate of G. verteegii . Myorrhiza colonization on G. versteegii root was higher in media with rhizosphere addition. It could be concluded that Application of Senaru rhizosphere containing Mycorrhiza increases G. versteegii growth but not its germination percentage . This research enrich knowledge in biological science about asociation of mycorrhiza with G. versteegii especially on its growth and germination


When I started reading this book, I thought it was going to be a story about anesthesia. Instead, it is a book mostly about the lack of anesthesia among patients undergoing surgery; that is, it is a story of intraoperative awareness. The author lives in Melbourne, Australia, and has described her visits and the studies of some of the individuals around the world who have investigated anesthesia recall, including: Kate Leslie, M.B.B.S., M.D., M.Epid., M.Hlth.Serv.Mt., F.A.N.Z.C.A., F.A.H.M.S., of the University of Melbourne (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia); J. Edmond I. Eger, II, M.D., since deceased, labeled by the author as the "most famous anesthesiologist in the world," who introduced minimum alveolar concentration and how it possibly relates to recall; and George Mashour, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, Michigan). She also interviewed, and described the horrible observations of, some patients who experienced intraoperative awareness. The author makes the point that there are risks in paralyzing patients without making sure they are also anesthetized, and the majority of patients who do have recall during anesthesia were paralyzed during their anesthetic. She notes that if a patient remembers their surgery, the patient probably would be more relieved if they are told what actually happened, rather than if the anesthesiologist were to avoid an explanation due to the fear of being sued. The author notes that operating rooms should have a sign on the door saying "The patient can hear," and that we should be kind to patients. And finally, hypnosis has been shown in some studies to relieve preoperative stress; it is an inexpensive technique that may improve the perioperative experience by reducing distress, and may even help patients after surgery, including those who have distress due to unexpected recall. The majority of the book is like a stream of consciousness as it relates to the author's life and her upcoming scoliosis surgery. The book starts with a description of the author's need for scoliosis surgery, and more than 300 pages later, she finally undergoes surgery. Throughout the book, different studies are summarized that relate mostly to recall or why it might happen. Most books that discuss different studies reference the studies in the body of the text. That doesn't happen in this book. It was not until this reviewer got to the end of the book that references were viewed. Most of the references are incomplete. Take, for example, a reference in the text: "Take that Swedish study: Sandin et al., 2000." There are 14 articles that include Sandin as an author, and four with Sandin as the first author. (The referenced article was probably: Sandin RH, Enlund G, Samuelsson P, Lennmarken C: Awareness during anesthesia: A prospective case study. Lancet 2000; 355: 707–11.) Earlier in the book, the author describes Levinson's study where a mock code was simulated to determine if recall after anesthesia was likely.1 However, no reference was provided. In that same chapter there's a reference to the book Poison Arrows, though the actual title of the book is Poison Arrows: The Amazing Story of How Prozac and Anaesthetics Were Developed from Deadly Jungle Poison Darts. The author is not an anesthesiologist and makes certain statements that do not ring true. "Certain types of anesthetics (those delivered into your bloodstream rather than those you inhale) raise the risk (of anesthesia recall) if used alone"—no evidence supports this. "Certain types of people, too, are more likely to wake during surgery: women, fat people, redheads, drugs abusers..."—the studies that include these descriptors are either small or anecdotal, studies that are mostly not proven true in subsequent large trials. There is reference to William Morton and Charles Jackson, the ones who first discovered anesthesia, without also mentioning Crawford Long. "Few will be aware...eyes will be taped shut"—to eliminate corneal abrasion; "...they may be tied down..."—so they will not fall off the operating room bed, much like a seatbelt used in a car; and "...they will have a plastic tube maneuvered into their reluctant airway..."—for safety purposes for the purpose of ventilation. "It is not unusual for patients, just before passing out, to tell surgical staff how attractive they are..."—in fact, this more commonly happens when patients awaken from anesthesia, particularly when propofol is used. Then, "...nitrous oxide (still among the most widespread anesthetic drugs in use today)"—that's not true: though difficult to quantify, throughout the world, its use has dramatically decreased.2 "Hallucinations after surgery are remarkably common, particularly in older patients."—though older patients might have hallucinations after surgery, the evidence to show they are common is not there. Despite the book's inaccuracies and its stream of consciousness style, it is nicely written. The book is excellent for residents if only to meet those who study intraoperative awareness and to realize the harm to patients who experience awareness. Anesthesia: The Gift of Oblivion and the Mystery of Consciousness serves as a nice review also for those who practice anesthesia.


The ability of transplanted marrow-thymus cell mixtures to generate antibody- forming cells in irradiated syngeneic or F1 hybrid mice when immunized with sheep erythrocytes 18 hours later was determined. Much fewer anti-sheep plaque-forming cells (PFC) were detected in spleens of F1 hybrid mice. Adrenalectomy, use of infant recipient mice, or preimmunization of donors or hosts did not prevent the suppression; the grafting of irradiated donor-type spleen cells (source of "accessory" cells) produced only an additive effect. Parental marrow and thymus cells were able to generate new precursors of PFC and specific inducer cells, respectively, in spleens of F1 hybrid mice, as detected by two-step experiments utilizing parent-strain secondary recipient mice. The suppression depended upon transferring parental strain thymus cells into F1 hybrid mice and was seen ir-respective of the marrow donor strain. When irradiated mice were immunized twice (on the day of transplantation and 4 days later), there was only marginal suppression of antibody production when marrow cells only or marrow plus thy- mus cells were transplanted. Thus, it appears that an excess of thymus-derived "suppressor" cells is generated upon exposure to alloantigens and inhibit terminal differentiation of antibody-forming cells in a noncytotoxic manner. Mature PFC themselves were not the targets of suppression. The method of immunization prob- ably determines the relative functional capacity of thymus-derived "helper" and suppressor cells (Am J Pathol 71:151-154, 1973).


The aim of the study was to assess the values of serum estradiol (E2) in women undergoing ovarian stimulation with five direct commercial assays (IMX, Amerlite, Spectria, Vidas, CA) and to compare them with the results of an E2 direct method used in our laboratory. The study included 12 infertile women. Thirteen cycles were monitored daily during ovarian stimulation with transvaginal ultrasound and serum E2. Large differences were found between the E2 concentrations measured on the same sample with the different methods. In general the IMX and Amerlite assays gave the highest and CA the lowest results. The results of our own RIA and Spectria assay agreed more closely. The median ratio of the highest E2 value (IMX assay) and the lowest E2 value (CA value) was 1.75 (1.30-3.15). Values of E2 measured in serum depend on the method used. It is not possible to apply criteria from other studies directly to one's own patients. Close collaboration between the laboratories and the clinical staff is essential.


Seagrass meadows are declining globally. In Indonesia, 75% loss has been reported in the last 5 years. The decrease of the seagrass area is influenced by the simultaneous occurrence of many factors at the local and global scale, including nutrient enrichment and climate change. This study aims to find out how increasing temperature and nutrient enrichment affect the morphological, biochemical and physiological responses of Enhalus acoroides in the seedling phase, which has not previously been studied. To achieve these aims, a laboratory experiment of combined temperature and nutrient treatments was conducted using recently-germinated seedlings of E. acoroides. The results showed that the seedlings were tolerant to an extended exposure to the current ambient maximum temperature. Under higher temperature treatment, the seedlings were observed to increase in aboveground size traits (e.g., number of leaves, leaf length, biomass, and leaf area), as well as in belowground traits, such as root length. The results in this study also showed that the initial seed size matters for morphological responses. On the contrary, nutrient responses of seedlings were practically absent, suggesting they could rely on internal reserves. Interaction between both factors was limited, with the exception of low temperature and high nutrient treatment, in which the AG:BG ratio and leaf elongation rate increased. Fluorescence parameters were not influenced by any of the water treatments. The results in this study suggest that E. acoroides seedlings rely energetically in the reserves within the seedling and that increasing temperature might result in faster seedling development, although no interactions with other organisms were tested. This is of importance when studying the resilience capacity of this species and when restoration attempts are planned, as a faster root development would provide a faster stabilization in the sediment and the survival of the whole plant.


Abstract Was the death of the Yucca Mountain repository the fate of a technical lemon or a political lemon? We must be careful not to let this debate lure us away from capitalizing on the fruits of the project. One such fruit is a system for safely sealing packages containing radioactive nuclear waste. In March 2009, Idaho National Laboratory (INL) successfully demonstrated the Waste Package Closure System (WPCS), a full-scale prototype system for closing waste packages (WPs) that were to be entombed in the now-abandoned Yucca Mountain repository. This paper describes the system and components, which INL designed and built, to weld the closure lids on the WPs, nondestructively examine the welds using four different techniques, repair the welds if necessary, mitigate crack-initiating stresses in the surfaces of the welds, evacuate and backfill the WPs with an inert gas, and perform all of these tasks remotely. As a nation, we now have a proven method for securely sealing nuclear WPs for long-term storage—regardless of whether the future destination for these WPs will be an underground repository. Additionally, many of the WPCS's features and concepts may benefit other remote nuclear applications.


Indexes in scientometrics are based on citations. However, in contrast to the journal impact factor, which gives only the ranking of the scientific journals, ordered by impact factor, indexes in scientometrics are suitable for ranking of scientists, scientific journals and countries. In this paper the h-index, h5-index, the World ranking the top of 25 Highly Cited Researchers (h > 100) and the ranking of 25 scientists in Hungarian Institutions according to their Google Scholar Citations public profiles are considered. These indexes (h5-index) are applied for making of the list of top 20 publications (journals and proceedings) in the field of Robotics. The World ranking is done of the best 50 countries according to h-index in year 2014. Data are obtained from the portal Scimago.


Following the liberalisation of the electricity industry since the early 1990s, many sector regulators have recognised the potential for cost efficiency improvement in the networks through incentive regulation aided by benchmarking and productivity analysis. This approach has often resulted in cost efficiency and quality of service improvement. However, there remains a growing concern as to whether the utilities invest sufficiently and efficiently in maintaining and modernising the networks to ensure long term reliability and also to meet future challenges of the grid. This paper analyses the relationship between investments and cost efficiency in the context of incentive regulation with ex-post regulatory treatment of investments using a panel dataset of 126 Norwegian distribution companies from 2004 to 2010. We introduce the concept of "no impact efficiency" as a revenue-neutral efficiency effect of investment under incentive regulation which makes a firm "investment efficient" in cost benchmarking practice. Also, we estimate the observed efficiency effect of investments in order to compare with no impact efficiency and discuss the implication of cost benchmarking for investment behaviour of network companies.


In this study a strategy for a 3D optimisation of the exhaust of a low pressure (LP) steam turbine is presented. The ?ow domain utilized consists of both the last stage and the exhaust diffuser. The optimisation is done with the help of a hybrid surrogate model for the diffuser ?ow. In the ?rst part of the paper a numerical model and its validation is presented, which allows for a precise simulation of the diffuser ?ow including the actual 3D geometry. The second part describes the optimisation procedure and the necessary simpli?cations applied to this model in order to get a numerical setup that is fast enough to actually perform a design study with roughly 200 design variants within a feasible time. This model is used afterwards to create a surrogate model. Based on this meta model an optimisation is carried out and ?nally scrutinzed with a ?ow simulation of the whole exhaust hood.


This study aimed at determining the chemical composition of bio-oil from giant cane (Arundo donax L.), as well as its performance as a wood preservative. The performance was determined through water absorption, tangential swelling, and resistance to fungi and termites. Bio-oil was obtained by pyrolysis at 450 to 525 oC. The yield of liquid, char, and gas was determined to be 45, 30, and 25%, respectively. The most abundant chemical compounds found in the bio-oil were acids, ketones, furans, benzenes, phenols, sugars, and guaiacols. Scots pine sapwood was impregnated with the obtained bio-oil at concentrations of 10 and 20%. Additionally, treated samples were impregnated with epoxidized linseed oil to study its effect on bio-oil leachability. The retention of the giant cane bio-oil was in the range of 50 to 100 kg m-3. Leached samples were exposed to white- and brown-rot fungi, according to European standard EN 113. Wood impregnated with only cane oil demonstrated a durability that classifies the treatment as very effective (mass loss less than 3%). Epoxidized linseed oil treatment significantly reduced water absorption of the treated samples with bio-oil and further improved the durability. A termite test showed that bio-oil was also effective against Reticulitermes flavipes.


The Rosetta Stone program advertises that it can teach language as effectively as, or even more effectively than, a typical classroom-learning environment. Little research has examined this claim, but as institutions are asked to cut costs and simultaneously embrace digital technologies, these programs are often considered as a possible solution to potentially replace teachers or other personnel. This exploratory multiple case study examines the claims and learning outcomes of the Rosetta Stone program among beginning Spanish learners to assess the effects of a semester-long treatment in which participants used Rosetta Stone as their class textbook or alone (instead of any class attendance), as compared to a control group. Data analysis focuses on learner outcomes in terms of linguistic production as well as their attitudes about the materials. Results reveal qualitative differences characterizing learners' speech and strategies, as well as their reactions to the program. While continued investigation is needed, these initial results do not yet provide indication that the Rosetta Stone program, although possibly able to deliver success in some areas, would be capable of replacing the classroom language learning experience.


The design issues of the active-clamp forward converter circuit with peak current mode control in small signal stability and large-signal transients are discussed. A design procedure is provided to solve circuit issues under these conditions. It is the first time that with the aid of simulation, we are able to optimize the circuit design of the active-clamp forward converter for large-signal transient behaviors.


In July 2001 the Deer-Vehicle Crash Information Clearinghouse (DVCIC) was created by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation. During the last two years an extensive review of deer-vehicle crash (DVC) countermeasure documentation has been completed. This toolbox contains what is believed to be the most detailed summary and evaluation of DVC countermeasure information. Three levels of discussion are provided that focus on the current state-of-the-knowledge related to 16 potential DVC countermeasures. Specific findings and conclusions for each countermeasure are discussed in Chapter 2 and summarized in the Executive Summary. Each of the summaries in Chapter 2 can be acquired from the DVCIC webpage: www.deercrash.com. More broad-based conclusions and recommendations are provided in Chapter 3. It was generally concluded that it is difficult to define the magnitude of the DVC problem in the United States, and that the collection of roadside deer carcass locations may provide a more accurate measure of the problem. The 16 countermeasures are grouped into five categories based on their apparent use and how much they had been studied. It was not considered appropriate, given the current limited state-of-the-knowledge and lack of definitive studies, to group the countermeasures by their apparent DVC reduction capabilities. The majority of the potential countermeasures are used in the field, but the safety impacts of few have been evaluated rigorously. Only studies of properly installed/maintained exclusionary fencing and wildlife crossing installations have consistently shown DVC reductions. The DVC reduction capabilities of the other 14 countermeasures appear to still be in question. Different types of evaluations are recommended for each of the five categories defined. It is also recommended that a national or regional DVC database be created and that the value of a similar database of roadside carcass locations be evaluated. It is proposed that all DVC countermeasure installations and evaluations be completed by a team of transportation safety and ecology professionals. A national or regional DVC or large ungulate-vehicle crash safety research center should also be created to fund/promote appropriately designed research in the DVC area.


Studies were conducted to evaluate the normal changes in lipid metabolism occurring in the suckled Brahman crossbred female during the postpartum period (Exp. 1) and to examine the function of induced corpora lutea (CL) in postpartum cows fed diets with normal (2.8%) lipid or elevated (8%) lipid content (Exp. 2). Multiparous and primiparous females (n = 20), maintained on pasture without energy or protein supplementation, were used in Exp. 1. A linear increase (P less than .001) in plasma lipid metabolites was observed between the 1st and 8th wk after calving, reaching a plateau of 221 +/- 18.3 and 74 +/- 3.4 mg/dl for total cholesterol and triglycerides, respectively. Seventy percent of all postpartum females exhibited luteal activity within 50 d (x = 34.7 d), and 59% of these animals exhibited short luteal phases (less than 12 d). In Exp. 2, primiparous and multiparous females (n = 32) were assigned to receive a control (n = 16) or high-lipid (HL) diet (n = 16; 30% whole cottonseed) between d 1 and d 38 after calving. The HL diet increased (P less than .001) total cholesterol and triglycerides 1.7- and 1.4-fold, respectively, relative to controls, and increased (P less than .05) the spontaneous occurrence of low-level progesterone elevations. Forty-eight-hour calf removal and gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH; .22 mg/kg BW i.v.) were employed between d 21 and 26 after calving to induce ovulations. Mean concentrations of progesterone in the HL group were markedly higher (P less than .01) than in controls between d 5 and 8 of the induced cycle, and average lifespan of induced CL was approximately twice that of controls (P less than .01).


The Planning Coordination Group (PCG) was a nondepartmental government organization created in March 1955 by the Eisenhower administration to generate new ideas and coordinate U.S. political warfare activities aimed at exploiting S viet and East European vulnerabilities. The PCG's demise six months later reflected the continuing problems encountered by the new national security bureaucracy in waging political warfare. The PCG's agenda showcased the Eisenhower administration's efforts to attack Communism and secure freedom in a world in which the number and destructiveness of nuclear weapons were gr wing rapidly. At the same time, the PCG's history illustrates that aggressive Cold War policies had not been completely dismissed by the Eisenhower administration, a situation that contributed to the conflicting approaches strategy it pursued in 1955 and 1956 and the contradictions that adversely affected its policies in Eastern Europe. Finally, this article highlights Dwight Eisenhower's unwillingness to back his rhetorical support for psychological warfare with consistent action.


A novel and promising method to measure low levels of NOx utilizes the accumulating sensor principle. During an integration cycle, incoming NOx molecules are stored in a sensitive layer based on an automotive lean NOx trap (LNT) material that changes its electrical resistivity proportional to the amount of stored NOx, making the sensor suitable for long-term detection of low levels of NOx. In this study, the influence of the thickness of the sensitive layer, prepared by multiple screen-printing, is investigated. All samples show good accumulating sensing properties for both NO and NO2. In accordance to a simplified model, the base resistance of the sensitive layer and the sensitivity to NOx decrease with increasing thickness. Contrarily, the sensor response time increases. The linear measurement range of all samples ends at a sensor response of about 30% resulting in an increase of the linearly detectable amount with the thickness. Hence, the variation of the thickness of the sensitive layer is a powerful tool to adapt the linear measurement range (proportional to the thickness) as well as the sensitivity (proportional to the inverse thickness) to the application requirements. Calculations combining the sensor model with the measurement results indicate that for operation in the linear range, about 3% of the LNT material is converted to nitrate.