The story of how the PVH Corp. (referred to throughout this document as PVH) came to leada group of its top suppliers to build factories and a fabric mill in Ethiopia's Hawassa IndustrialPark (HIP) is the study of a strong collaboration between a private company looking to optimizeits business model and a government aiming to transform its economy through global strategic repositioning. The success of this story hinges upon the intersection of their goals and a shared vision of development that includes a strong commitment to social and environmental goals.PVH was motivated to invest in Ethiopia to respond to shifts in the global apparel sector, its growing desire to retool its business model and to address its concerns about compliance with social and environmental standards in its traditional sourcing locations. PVH had decided to rethink its business model and to look beyond the horizon towards a new region in which tolocate its manufacturing base. To have better oversight and enforcement, PVH moved to adopta fully integrated vertical supply chain, including direct investment in one of the manufacturingfacilities.Key to Ethiopia's success in attracting this important investor was the government's ability and willingness to strategically evaluate its foreign direct investment (FDI) needs and strategy and to take steps to evolve into an attractive location for higher value-added export-oriented investment.This case study explains a private investor's site selection process. It assesses the elements PVH prioritized when deciding to commit to Ethiopia, and specifically to HIP. The case study further assesses the government of Ethiopia's strategy, level of readiness, interest, and commitment, and sets out some key challenges that lie ahead for this partnership. The case study is structured in ten sections. Section second offers a brief background on the textile and apparel industry, including an explanation of its value chain. It provides a brief corporate profile of PVH and its current global footprint and business model. Section third describes the site selection process: PVH´s initial explorations in Africa, its consideration of several African countries, and its initial conversations and negotiations with Ethiopian authorities. Section fourth discusses the Ethiopian government's strategy to attract and expand export-oriented investments, including efforts to bolster the country's competitiveness. This section attempts to offer some explanation why Ethiopia was the right fit at the right time and its level of readiness to land such an investment. It provides a brief profile of PVH's Africa point of entry, the HIP. Section sixth covers the challenges that lie ahead for this-project---potential setbacks that will affect not only the consolidation and growth of the textiles and apparel industry in Ethiopia, but also the government's vision of becoming the "manufacturing powerhouse of Africa." Section eighth concludes with some key lessons from PVH's decision to invest in Ethiopia. Such lessons may be relevant to countries or regions interested inattracting FDI and may be of particular interest to other African countries in their quest to attract major investments in the textile and apparel sector.


In the spirit of Ferdinand de Saussure, the present contribution is offered as an integrated synchronic and diachronic analysis of syntactic variation phenomena across a selected number of Veneto and other Northern Italian dialects: the main focus of the study will be on (unembedded) interrogative clauses. The goal targeted is to account for the wide range of structural options allowed by contemporary dialects (VS/SV/SVS) in the light of the discrepant evolutionary stages they embody and reflect, as independently reconstructed and singled out in the history of the Venetian dialect. Seemingly idiosyncratic contemporary inter-dialectal variation phenomena are thus viewed as functions of the different parametric values dialects activate in dependence on the position they occupy in an evolutionary continuum which promotes the elimination of an anciently fully productive inverted pattern VS (along with the syntactic rule V-to-C which possibly underlies its generation).


This thesis deals with magnetic silica core-shell colloids and related functionalized silica structures. Synthesis routes have been developed and optimized. The physical properties of these colloids have been investigated, such as the magnetic dipole moment, dipolar structure formation and rotational dynamics of the magnetic silica spheres. Moreover attention has been paid to applications, such as functionalization of commercial silica sols and membranes as well as functionalization of magnetic silica with a catalyst. The synthesis of magnetic silica particles is presented in Chapter 2. Maghemite or cobalt ferrite nanoparticles irreversibly attached to the surface of monodisperse (fluorescent) silica spheres coated with a thiol-containing silane coupling agent. The resulting core-shell particles are subsequently covered with an outer silica shell. Electron- and confocal scanning laser microscopy show that these magnetizable silica colloids form dipolar chains when exposed to a homogeneous magnetic field if the outer silica shell is sufficiently thin. In Chapter 3, the method to synthesize silica composites via thiol-functionalization has been extended to other types of silica sols, such as commercially available silica nanoparticles, and porous silica grains to form composites with gold nanoparticles. Additionally, membranes of polyethersulfone are functionalized after first being encapsulated in a crust of silica nanoparticles. In Chapter 4, a proof-of-principle experiment is presented in which magnetic silica particles are coated with a catalyst. The large inducable dipole moment in these particles provides easy recycling of the catalyst. The magnetic properties of the core-shell particles from Chapter 2 are further investigated in Chapter 5 by measuring magnetization curves and the complex magnetic susceptibility as a function of both frequency and field amplitude. We demonstrate that silica microparticles with embedded cobalt ferrite nanoparticles have a permanent magnetic moment, even when the nanoparticles are oriented at random. This is revealed by susceptibility spectra of dispersed silica-cobalt ferrite particles, which show a characteristic frequency that corresponds to Brownian rotation of the microparticles, whereas the spectra of silica particles with maghemite only show contributions from Neel-relaxation inside the nanoparticles. An increase of the permanent magnetic moment is observed after treatment in a strong, saturating magnetic field. The dipole moment measured for these composite particles corresponds to a maximum interaction energy between the particles on the order of 0.5 to 1 kBT. The nearly diffusive rotation of these dipolar particles is studied in Chapter 6 by measuring the frequency-dependent complex magnetic susceptibility as a function of the particle concentration. In Chapter 7 static light scattering of the magnetic silica particles are performed at various optical contrasts. We investigate to what extent the theory for static light scattering of optically inhomogeneous particles in the Rayleigh-Gans-Debye approximation can be applied to spherical composite particles containing a core and two concentric shells, of which one containing magnetic metal oxide nanoparticles with a high refractive index. Although not able to describe the entire scattering profiles, we find iso-scattering points corresponding to the radius of single particles as obtained from electron microscopy.


In vision, high and low spatial frequencies have been dissociated at the cognitive and neural levels. Usually, high spatial frequency (HSF) is associated with slow analysis along the ventral cortical stream, and low spatial frequency (LSF) is associated with fast and automatic processing. These findings suggest a specific relation between spatial-frequency processing and visual awareness. We investigated this issue using masked-face priming with hybrid prime images of variable visibility. We found subliminal priming for both LSF and HSF information, along with a strong interaction between spatial frequency and visibility: HSF-related priming increased with stimulus visibility, whereas LSF influences remained unchanged. We argue that the results limit the validity of the coarse-to-fine model of vision and of models equating ventral-stream activity with perceptual awareness. Interpreting our results in light of the diagnostic approach suggests a close relation between awareness and diagnosticity.


A novel statistical model is proposed to characterize turbulence-induced fading in underwater wireless optical channels in the presence of air bubbles for fresh and salty waters, based on experimental data. In this model, the channel irradiance fluctuations are characterized by the mixture Exponential-Gamma distribution. We use the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm to obtain the maximum likelihood parameter estimation of the new model. Interestingly, the proposed model is shown to provide a perfect fit with the measured data under all the channel conditions for both types of water. The major advantage of the new model is that it has a simple mathematical form making it attractive from a performance analysis point of view. Indeed, the application of the Exponential- Gamma model leads to closed-form and analytically tractable expressions for key system performance metrics such as the outage probability and the average bit-error rate.


Elucidating the wiring diagram of the human cell is one of the central goals of the post-genomic era. Here, we integrate genome engineering, confocal imaging, mass spectrometry and data science to systematically map protein localization in live cells and protein interactions under endogenous expression conditions. For this, we generated a library of 1,311 CRISPR-edited cell lines harboring fluorescent tags that also serve as handles for affinity capture, and applied a new machine learning framework to encode the interaction and localization profiles of each protein. Our approach provides a data-driven description of the molecular and spatial networks that organize the human proteome. We show that unsupervised clustering of these networks delineates functional groups and facilitates biological discovery, while hierarchical analyses uncover the core features that template cellular architecture. Furthermore, we discover that localization signatures are remarkably predictive of protein function, and often contain enough information to identify molecular interactions. Paired with a fully interactive website (opencell.czbiohub.org), OpenCell is a resource for the quantitative cartography of human cellular organization.


Pituitary adenomas are differentiated tumors expressing their appropriate mature hormone. Tumoral cells sometimes present with a defective physiological inhibitory or stimulatory control, resulting in paradoxical responses or nonresponsiveness to regulatory neurohormones. These abnormalities can be explained by defects at the intracellular transduction mechanism level. Knowledge of these defective pathways has made progress in the understanding of the pathogenesis of pituitary adenomas possible. The discovery of mutations of Gs alpha named gsp oncogenes in 40% of human somatotropinomas represents one of the most important advances in this field. Other molecular alterations were identified but are rare and sporadic and the pathogenesis of pituitary adenomas remains largely unknown. Abnormal transduction mechanisms may also result in a variable sensitivity of tumors to pharmacological therapy. The dopamine agonist, bromocriptine, is able to normalize blood PRL levels and to reduce tumor size in the majority of patients with prolactinoma, but is ineffective in 8-15% of them. Under physiological conditions, PRL secretion is under the tonic inhibitory control of dopamine which binds D2 receptors negatively coupled to adenylyl cyclase. Several defects in the dopaminergic transduction pathways participate in this bromocriptine resistance. The mean D2-binding site density is decreased to 50% as compared to responsive tumors. This loss of D2 receptors can account for a lower transcription level of its gene and is accompanied by modifications in the messenger alternative splicing; the D2 short isoform receptor expression decreases preferentially. A reduction in Gi2 alpha protein expression is also observed and is correlated to that of the D2 receptor. Finally, the pituitary-specific transcription factor Pit-1 expression is affected. A highly significant correlation was seen between the D2 receptor mRNA and Pit-1 mRNA levels. These defects observed on many levels of the dopaminergic transduction cascade may be the first steps in the loss of the functional features of differentiated tumors toward more proliferative tumors.


In a VoD (video-on-demand system), admission control that is used to serve multimedia data efficiently has to be performed by an accurate grasp of the condition of surplus resources. Most of all, we need an adaptable admission control mechanism because the disk has an irregular response time caused by external elements of the disk, and also by the high deviation in demand. In this measurement-based statistical admission control scheme, as we suggested in this research, we can get both a maximum resource utilization and QoS guarantee through the off-line process and the on-line process. From performance evaluations, we show that the video server can provide maximum resource utilization with QoS guarantee through the precision of the performance by measurement and adaptable admission control according to the requested bandwidth.


Abstract The objectives of the current study were to determine the amounts of above- and below-ground plant biomass production, P uptake by forage, and P concentration of cool-season grass forage as influenced by management and season. Five forage management treatments were evaluated over 3 years in smooth bromegrass (Bromus inermis Leyss) pastures. Management practices were: ungrazed (U), hay harvest/fall stockpile grazing (HS), rotational stocking to residual sward heights of 10 (10R) or 5 (5R) cm, and continuous stocking to maintain sward height at 5 cm (5C). Forage samples were hand-clipped within and outside grazing exclosures monthly from April through November of each year and analyzed for mass and P concentration. Root samples were collected at the initiation and completion of the study for determination of root length density (RLD) and root surface area density (RSAD). Phosphorus concentrations of forage outside the grazing exclosures did not differ among 5C, 5R, and 10R treatments, which were greater than U paddocks in April and August and less than HS paddocks in June. Mean annual forage productivity was greater in HS, 10R, 5R, and 5C paddocks (6 744 ± 62 kg · ha−1 mean ± SE) than in the U paddocks (1 872 ± 255 kg · ha−1). Mean P concentration of forage outside exclosures was greatest during the spring (0.21 ± 0.01%), and lowest during the fall (0.13 ± 0.01%). Mean annual P uptake by forage followed the same trend as forage production, being greater in the HS, 10R, 5R, and 5C paddocks (13.9 ± 2.0 kg · ha−1) than in the U paddocks (3.7 ± 0.5 kg · ha−1). After 3 years, RLD decreased in the ungrazed paddocks, but was unchanged in the HS, 10R, 5R, and 5C paddocks. Forage production and P uptake by forage is stimulated by forage harvest, either by grazing or hay harvest in smooth bromegrass pastures.


The mechanisms by which amorphous silica dissolves have proven elusive because noncrystalline materials lack the structural order that allows them to be studied by the classical terrace, ledge, kink-based models applied to crystals. This would seem to imply amorphous phases have surfaces that are disordered at an atomic scale so that the transfer of SiO4 tetrahedra to solution always leaves the surface free energy of the solid unchanged. As a consequence, dissolution rates of amorphous phases should simply scale linearly with increasing driving force (undersaturation) through the higher probability of detaching silica tetrahedra. By examining rate measurements for two amorphous SiO2 glasses we find, instead, a paradox. In electrolyte solutions, these silicas show the same exponential dependence on driving force as their crystalline counterpart, quartz. We analyze this enigma by considering that amorphous silicas present two predominant types of surface-coordinated silica tetrahedra to solution. Electrolytes overcome the energy barrier to nucleated detachment of higher coordinated species to create a periphery of reactive, lesser coordinated groups that increase surface energy. The result is a plausible mechanism-based model that is formally identical with the classical polynuclear theory developed for crystal growth. The model also accounts for reported demineralization rates of natural biogenic and synthetic colloidal silicas. In principle, these insights should be applicable to materials with a wide variety of compositions and structural order when the reacting units are defined by the energies of their constituent species.


Mueller matrix polarimeters (MMPs) are designed to probe the polarization properties of optical scattering processes. When using a MMP for a detection, discrimination, classification, or identification task, a user considers certain elements of the Mueller matrix. The usual way of performing this task is to measure the full Mueller matrix and discard the unused elements. For polarimeter designs with speed, miniaturization, or other constraints, it may be desirable to have a system with reduced dimensionality that measures only elements of the Mueller matrix that are important in a particular application as efficiently as possible. In this paper, we develop a framework that allows partial MMPs to be analyzed. Quantitative metrics are developed by considering geometrical relationships between the space spanned by a particular MMP and the space occupied by the scene components. The method is generalized to allow the effects of noise to be considered. The results are general and can also be used to optimize complete and overspecified MMPs for performing specific tasks, as well.


: A significant minority of patients with acute pancreatitis show no obvious cause for the attack during a routine evaluation. There is no consensus regarding the appropriate diagnostic and therapeutic approach in this setting. This article reviews the available data, outlines directions for further investigation, and provides recommendations for management of patients who have recovered from a prior episode of unexplained acute pancreatitis.


TiO2 films were deposited by the sol–gel dip coating method assisted by ultra sonic agitation, for their use as propane gas sensors. XRD anlaysis revealed the TiO2 anatase phase for all samples. The film thickness was controlled with the number of the dip-coating immersion cycles, obtaining thicknesses from 10 to 130 nm and a growing rate of 18 nm per immersion. Surface morphology shows that films grow more compact and densely packed as the number of immersion cycles increase. Gas sensing studies indicate that work temperatures above 300°C are needed for sensing activation of the films. Gas sensors sensitivity as a function of propane concentration and film thickness revealed a two-regime behavior: for partial pressures of propane above 400 ppm the sensitivity is not dependent of the film thickness, whereas it is dependent on this parameter at lower partial pressures. Such behavior is attributed to a space charge region and a change in surface structure. For the low concentration regime, the maximum sensitivity was obtained for a film thickness of 110 nm or 5 inmersions.


Abstract. The digitization of complex buildings, findings or bas relieves can strongly facilitate the work of archaeologists, mainly for in depth analysis tasks. Notwithstanding, whether new visualization techniques ease the study phase, a classical naked-eye approach for determining changes or surface alteration could bring towards several drawbacks. The research work described in these pages is aimed at providing experts with a workflow for the evaluation of alterations (e.g. color decay or surface alterations), allowing a more rapid and objective monitoring of monuments. More in deep, a pipeline of work has been tested in order to evaluate the color variation between surfaces acquired at different epoques. The introduction of reliable tools of change detection in the archaeological domain is needful; in fact, the most widespread practice, among archaeologists and practitioners, is to perform a traditional monitoring of surfaces that is made of three main steps: production of a hand-made map based on a subjective analysis, selection of a sub-set of regions of interest, removal of small portion of surface for in depth analysis conducted in laboratory. To overcome this risky and time consuming process, digital automatic change detection procedure represents a turning point. To do so, automatic classification has been carried out according to two approaches: a pixel-based and an object-based method. Pixel-based classification aims to identify the classes by means of the spectral information provided by each pixel belonging to the original bands. The object-based approach operates on sets of pixels (objects/regions) grouped together by means of an image segmentation technique. The methodology was tested by studying the bas-relieves of a temple located in Peru, named Huaca de la Luna. Despite the data sources were collected with unplanned surveys, the workflow proved to be a valuable solution useful to understand which are the main changes over time.


ABSTRACT This article deals with the personal epistemologies developed by teachers who undergo academic continuing education on an advanced level at a time when conflicting discourses form the basis of teaching in today's school, i.e. academisation on one hand and measurability and accountability in the name of New Public Management on the other. To give the interviewed teachers in this study an opportunity to clarify and become more aware of their epistemologies and to assist in getting started, we initially presented concepts developed in an academic discourse: Hofer's account of different, interrelated dimensions of 'personal epistemologies', clustered in two areas: the nature of knowledge, and the nature or process of knowing. As a result, we interpret the students' epistemological beliefs through a professional perspective, i.e. as justification of the profession's academisation. In their unhesitating confident trust in practitioners' knowledge, as mainly acquired from experience in the field, they express a vocational habitus. One may thus assume that practitioners possess proven experiences, i.e. experience-based knowledge that they have acquired and that should be recognised and added to the knowledge base of the field in an academic and vertical discourse.


Executive summary: In 2018, China enacted an import ban on twenty-four types of recyclables as part of its National Sword policy, upending recycling programs across the U.S. In Arizona, many municipalities have responded by significantly reducing or completely halting their programs, causing some cities to landfill their recyclables. We have reviewed state legislation and interviewed waste management coordinators to identify the key challenges and opportunities for recycling in Arizona. Informed by our interviews, we call on Arizona state legislators to (1) pass a resolution to appropriate funding for the recycling grant program, (2) amend this program to allow for joint applications, (3) repeal A.R.S. 9-500.38, 'Prohibition on regulation of auxiliary containers; state preemption; definition', (4) introduce a tax on products imported in single-use containers, and (5) provide incentives to companies using Arizona recyclables. These policies would reinvigorate recycling within the state, make Arizona's waste management systems more cost-effective, and foster new local processing and manufacturing industries.


Granitic residual soils are generally suitable materials for filling embankments in Malaysia due to extensive occurrence in Malaysian land. Various types of these materials from grade IV to VI have been used in embankments successfully in the past. However, they can be problematic during continuous heavy rainfall. Infiltration of rainwater within the void spaces in unsaturated zone increases the pore water pressure and reduce the suction in the soil matrix. This can lead to a significant drop in soil shear strength especially the soil apparent cohesion as well as an increase in the bulk weight of soil mass which may cause massive settlement known as inundation settlement or wetting collapse. The same problem can occur in unsaturated granitic residual soil involves earth dams, shallow foundations, and roads. However, the conventional soils volume change models which are based on the effective stress concept for saturated soils dose not depict the volume change behaviour of unsaturated soil subjected to the wetting solely. The effect of shear strength in the interaction of effective stress is essential to be incorporated. The main aim of this study is to investigate the collapse behaviour of an unsaturated Malaysian granitic residual soil grade V subjected to loading and wetting by incorporating effective stress and shear strength. The soil was obtained from Kuala Klawang, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. The shear strength of the soil was characterized and the stress-strain curves were determined using consolidated drained triaxial tests conducted on both saturated and unsaturated compacted specimens. The experimental data of the saturated and unsaturated shear strength of the soil were fitted with a comprehensive constitutive shear strength model know as Curved Surface Envelope Soil Shear Strength Model that represents both linear and nonlinear shear strength behaviours with respect to suction and net stress/effective stress for unsaturated and saturated conditions. The study confirmed that the model provides the best fit for the experimental data and it is applicable for Kuala Klawang granitic residual soil grade V A suction-controlled double wall triaxial test was carried out under certain applying stress and suction to obtain the axial strain of the compacted specimen subjected to the loading and wetting. The results showed that a massive settlement around 1.92% of the initial height occurred during wetting while the soil was nearly saturated. Besides, the unsaturated collapse behaviour of Kuala Klawang granitic residual soil was simulated using the Rotational Multiple Yield Surface Framework. The model is based on the unique relationship between minimum mobilized friction angle and axial strain which incorporates the effect of shear strength into the volume change of unsaturated soils. The stressstrain response of the soil in an unsaturated condition and the axial strain during loading and wetting were predicted applying the model. The predicted results were in good agreements with experimental tests results, proving the ability of the framework in simulating and predicting the settlement of Kuala Klawang granitic residual soil grade V during compression and wetting.


When DNA and the rubomycin-DNA complex were incorporated into liposomes containing stearylamine, about 90 per cent of their amounts associated with the liposomes, incubation of such liposomes for an hour at 25-50 degrees C being not accompanied by liberation of DNA and its complex. Only about 10 per cent of DNA associated with the liposomes was destroyed by DNase I. The liposomal DNA was more stable to ultrasound than free DNA. The molecular mass of DNA associated with the liposomes on treatment with ultrasound decreased 1.9 times, whereas that of free DNA decreased by more than 3 times. With an increase in the weight ratio of lipid/DNA the level of DNA degradation lowered. This is evidence of the fact that liposomes increase resistance of DNA and its complex to chemical and physical factors.


a Abstract Hybrid revascularization provides minimally invasive options for high-risk patients with multivessel coronary artery disease. We used a hybrid approach in two patients. The surgical revascularization with the left internal mammary artery (LIMA) on the left descending coronary artery was performed through an inferior j-shaped mini-sternotomy keeping the patients awake with high-epidural thoracic anesthesia. At the end of the operations the patients were moved to the angiography laboratory to complete the revascularization with angioplasty. No complications were reported. 2009 Published by European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery. All rights reserved.


This article summarises the scientific results gained from the satellite observation of the land surface during African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis (AMMA). Validation of existing satellite products as well as developments of new algorithms are reported, spanning surface and total soil moisture, surface energy balance and radiation fluxes, vegetation properties and land cover (LC). The use of remote sensing data for investigating land–atmosphere interactions, for retrieving the components of continental water cycle and for evaluating Land Surface Models (LSM) is illustrated. The contribution of satellite data to the detection of decadal trends is also highlighted, revealing intriguing results and open questions. Copyright © 2011 Royal Meteorological Society


Over the last decade or so the African continent has continued to experience political changes of monumental proportions. Monumental not only because of the drastic restructuring of social and economic and political spaces, but also because of the introduction of new forms of politics and political actors. These changes were driven a great deal by the developments in the global system, in particular, the demise of the Soviet Union as a nation and super power, the triumph of the market, and more importantly, the end of the Cold War. In relation to these changes, the African continent has equally been characterised by a succession of large-scale refugee movements, internal population displacements and mass repatriation movements. In a number of countries – Angola, Burundi, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Somalia, for example, large proportions of the population have been uprooted, forced to abandon their homes by communal and ethnic conflict, persecution and violence. Most of these refugees have ended up in Kenya with a number of arms or religious fundamental ideologies. The process has witnessed an influx of arms in Kenya, helping fuel intra-ethnic and inter-border conflicts. Kenya has witnessed massive devastating terrorist attacks beginning with the bombings of the US Embassy and now Kenya has become an easy prey and target for terrorist activities. The reasons for this trend have been a concern for academics around the globe. A close look at intra-state conflicts in East Africa reveals a common pattern, for example: rebellion against central authority; inter-communal ethnic or religious conflicts; sporadic short lived conflicts related to resource around livestock; and generalised violence which is banditry-related. This study is a historical investigation of the development of local conflicts, informal militia and  security measures during the transition to political pluralism in Kenya between 1992-2002, and tries to establish some links that may have connected or caused the country to be a target of international terrorism.


3D Video (3DV) with depth-image-based view synthesis is a promising candidate of next generation broadcasting applications. However, the synthesized views in 3DV are often contaminated by annoying artifacts, particularly notably around object boundaries, due to imperfect depth maps (e.g., produced by state-of-the-art stereo matching algorithms or compressed lossily). In this paper, we first review some representative methods for boundary artifact reduction in view synthesis, and make an in-depth investigation into the underlying mechanisms of boundary artifact generation from a new perspective of texture-depth alignment in boundary regions. Three forms of texture-depth misalignment are identified as the causes for different boundary artifacts, which mainly present themselves as scattered noises on the background and object erosion on the foreground. Based on the insights gained from the analysis, we propose a novel solution of suppression of misalignment and alignment enforcement (denoted as SMART) between texture and depth to reduce background noises and foreground erosion, respectively, among different types of boundary artifacts. The SMART is developed as a three-step pre-processing in view synthesis. Experiments on view synthesis with original and compressed texture/depth data consistently demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed method as compared with other relevant boundary artifact reduction schemes.


In an experiment (N = 99), effects of subtle and prominent online advertising formats, respectively sponsored content and banner ads, on audience reactions toward the advertisement are tested. In addition, the role of several persuasion knowledge elements such as understanding of persuasive intent and ad skepticism in processing online advertising formats is investigated. Results show that participants find the sponsored content more informative, more amusing, and less irritating than the banner ad. With respect to persuasion knowledge, recognition of the advertising format, understanding of persuasive intent, and ad skepticism are higher for banner ads than for sponsored content. Furthermore, ad skepticism seems to be strongly related to perceived advertising value. These new findings show that persuasion knowledge plays a role in the appreciation of subtle and prominent online advertising formats.


Organic molecules are versatile and tunable building blocks for technology, in nanoscale and bulk devices. In this dissertation, I will consider some important applications for organic molecules involving optical and transport properties, and develop methods and software appropriate for theoretical calculations of these properties. Specifically, we will consider second-harmonic generation, a nonlinear optical process; photoisomerization, in which absorption of light leads to mechanical motion; charge transport in junctions formed of single molecules; and optical excitations in pentacene, an organic semiconductor with applications in photovoltaics, optoelectronics, and flexible electronics. In the Introduction (Chapter 1), I will give an overview of some phenomenology about organic molecules and these application areas, and discuss the basics of the theoretical methodology I will use: density-functional theory (DFT), time-dependent density-functional theory (TDDFT), and many-body perturbation theory based on the GW approximation. In the subsequent chapters, I will further discuss, develop, and apply this methodology.2. I will give a pedagogical derivation of the methods for calculating response properties in TDDFT, with particular focus on the Sternheimer equation, as will be used in subsequent chapters. I will review the many different response properties that can be calculated (dynamic and static) and the appropriate perturbations used to calculate them.3. Standard techniques for calculating response use either integer occupations (as appropriate for a system with an energy gap) or fractional occupations due to a smearing function, used to improve convergence for metallic systems. I will present a generalization which can be used to compute response for a system with arbitrary fractional occupations.4. Chloroform (CHCl3) is a small molecule commonly used as a solvent in measurements of nonlinear optics. I computed its hyperpolarizability for second-harmonic generation with TDDFT with a real-space grid, finding good agreement with calculations using localized bases and with experimental measurements, and that the response is very long-ranged in space.5. N@C60 is an endohedral fullerene, a sphere of carbon containing a single N atom inside, which is weakly coupled electronically. I show with TDDFT calculations that a laser pulse can excite the vibrational mode of this N atom, transiently turning on and off the system's ability to undergo second-harmonic generation. The calculated susceptibility is as large as some commercially used frequency-doubling materials.6. A crucial question in understanding experimental measurements of nonlinear optics and their relation to device performance is the effect of the solution environment on the properties of the isolated molecules. I will consider possible explanations for the large enhancement of the hyperpolarizability of chloroform in solution, demonstrate an ab initio method of calculating electrostatic effects with local-field factors, and derive the equations necessary for a full calculation of liquid chloroform.7. Many-body perturbation theory, in the GW approximation for quasiparticle bandstructure and Bethe-Salpeter equation for optical properties, is a powerful method for calculations in solids, nanostructures, and molecules. The BerkeleyGW code is a freely available implementation of this methodology which has been extensively tested and efficiently parallelized for use on large systems.8. Molecular junctions, in which a single molecule is contacted to two metallic leads, are interesting systems for studying nanoscale transport. I will present a method called DFT+Sigma which approximates many-body perturbation theory to enable accurate and efficient calculations of the conductance of these systems.9. Azobenzene is a molecule with the unusual property that it can switch reversible between two different geometries, cis and trans, upon absorption of light. I have calculated the structures of these two forms when absorbed on the Au(111) surface, to understand scanning tunneling microscope studies and elucidate the switching mechanism on the surface. I have also calculated the conductance of the two forms in a molecular junction.10. The Seebeck and Peltier thermoelectric effects can interconvert electricity and heat, and are parametrized by the Seebeck coefficient. Standard methods in quantum transport for computing this quantity are problematic numerically. I will show this fact in a simple model and derive a more robust and efficient approach.11. Pentacene is an organic semiconductor which shows exciton self-trapping in its optical spectra. I will present a method for calculation of excited-state forces with the Bethe-Salpeter equation that can be applied to study the geometrical relaxation that occurs upon absorption of light by pentacene.


Finding corresponding seismic horizons which have been separated by a fault is still performed manually in geological interpretation of seismic images. The difficulties of automating this task are due to the small amount of local information typical for those images, resulting in a high degree of interpretation uncertainty. Our approach is based on a model consisting of geological and geometrical knowledge in order to support the low-level image information. Finding the geologically most probable matches of several horizons across a fault is a combinatorial optimization problem, which cannot be solved exhaustively since the number of combinations increases exponentially with the number of horizons. A genetic algorithm (GA) has been chosen as the most appropriate strategy to solve the optimization problem. Our implementation of a GA is adapted to this particular problem by introducing geological knowledge into the solution process. The results verify the suitability of the method and the appropriateness of the parameters chosen for the horizon correlation problem.


At temperatures typical of astrophysical environments, nuclear cross sections are extremely small and experimental measurements in a laboratory at the Earth's surface are hampered by the cosmic background. The LUNA collaboration has exploited the unique features of background reduction offered by the rock overburden above the LNGS underground laboratory in order to study very important hydrogen-burning reactions at their relevant astrophysical energies. After a general introduction on the LUNA experiment, this paper reports on the most important results for the (p,γ) and (α,γ) fusion reactions measured so far and their astrophysical consequences. A quick look on the future possibilities is also given.


− Document clustering is an area that deals with the unsupervised grouping of text documents into meaningful groups, usually representing topics in the document collection. It is one way to organize information without requiring prior knowledge about the classification of documents. The well-known K-means clustering algorithm allows users to specify the number of clusters. However, if the pre-specified number of clusters is modified, the precision of each result also changes. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a new clustering algorithm based on the Kea keyphrase extraction algorithm. In this paper, documents are grouped into several clusters like K-means, but the number of clusters is automatically determined by finding out the similarities between documents and the extracted keyphrases. It also calculates F-measure value using precision and recall which gives the better clusters.


The article proposes a new interpretation of the development of tax havens in the 19th and 20th centuries. Few historians have addressed this issue, and the long-term narratives over the evolution of tax havens remain unconvincing and rely on several misconceptions and anachronisms. The article first examines the supposed origins of tax havens before the First World War. It contradicts the idea that the modern history of tax havens began during the financial globalization of the Belle Epoque. Indeed, movements of capital flight caused by taxation became significant only from 1914 onwards due to the rise in taxes in warring countries. The second part of the article thus focuses on the development of tax havens during the interwar years by demonstrating how offshore centres already played a crucial role in the functioning of the gold exchange standard in Europe at the time – a fact that financial history has overlooked. Finally, the article analyses the revival of the offshore economy that occurred after a period of decline from the end of the 1950s onwards. It challenges the thesis that this resurgence was deeply driven by decolonisation and highlights the process that connected the financial liberalization in rich countries to the regeneration of tax havens. This article provides the first serious long-term perspective on this subject based on extensive investigations into archives. As such, it offers a significant contribution to economic history.


Abstract Mash feed preparation is the widely practiced method of preparing and presenting feed to laying hens in the egg industry due to its economics, flexibility, and simplicity. However, this form of feed presents a wide range of particle sizes that are likely to segregate (i.e., large particles may separate from the small particles during feed delivery through either auger or drag-chain delivery systems). Two predominant segregation patterns were observed, including sieving and side-to-side segregation, during feed delivery. These segregation patterns promoted ingredient selection activities by the hens (mainly larger particles) that modified the nutrients in the feed and influenced the hens' ability to meet their daily nutrient requirements. This observation was quantified through a systematic study of the relationship of feed nutrients, feed particle size distribution, and hen performance, including BW and egg quality analysis. To minimize the feed segregation effect on hen performance and egg quality, 3 recommendations are proposed to improve feed fabrication and the feed delivery system.


Like its predecessor, Basel II has profoundly shaped bank capital adequacy regimes across the world. However, there has been little systematic research on the state of Basel II implementation across developed and developing countries, and the factors that promote or hinder the implementation of these voluntary standards are particularly under-researched. By drawing on a new global dataset of Basel II implementation across 150 countries compiled by the author, this thesis evaluates the state of Basel II implementation at the global level and investigates why countries implement Basel II. Three novel channels of policy diffusion formed across supervisory authorities, global banks and financial sectors were specifically constructed to study the diffusion of Basel II policies using a mixed-method research design. A quantitative study tests the effects of policy diffusion on Basel II implementation across four distinct channels of diffusion formed by inter-supervisory authority networks, the cross-border structure of international banks, competition between financial sectors and the nexus of international economic exchange. This is complemented by in-depth case studies that unpack the causal process through which policy diffusion shaped the national implementation of Basel II in Chile, Hong Kong, Korea and Malaysia. I find that the state of Basel II implementation at the global level is highly uneven and clustered, and show that Basel II policy decisions in countries are highly interdependent on the policy decisions of other countries with which those countries are closely interconnected. Policy diffusion not only promotes the degree of convergence with Basel II, but also reinforces partial, gradual and delayed implementation. The diffusion of implementation policies can thus be a curse and a blessing for the future of Basel II and the broader global financial regulatory architecture due to its double-edged power to promote as well as hinder the degree of regulatory convergence with international financial standards.


The purpose of this research is to study aspects of the impact of Dynamic Geometry Systems (DGS) in the process of producing conjectures in Euclidean geometry. Previous research has identified and classified a set of dragging schemes spontaneously used by students. Building on these findings, the study focuses on cognitive processes that arise in correspondence to particular dragging modalities in Cabri. Specifically, we have conceived a model describing what seems to occur during a process of conjecture-generation that involves the use of a particular dragging modality, described in the literature as dummy locus dragging. In order to accomplish this goal, we preliminarily introduced participants to specific dragging modalities, re-elaborated with a didactic aim from those present in the literature. In particular dummy locus dragging was re-elaborated into what we introduced as maintaining dragging (MD). This study aimed at developing and testing our model of conjecture-generation through MD by analyzing dynamic explorations of open problems in a DGS. The general experimental design was articulated in two phases, an introductory lesson on dragging modalities and interview sessions in which students were asked to solve conjecturing-open problems. Subjects were high school students in Italian "licei scientifici", a total of 31. Data collected included: audio and video recordings, screenshots of the students' explorations, transcriptions of the task-based interviews, and the students' work on paper that was produced during the interviews. The study shows appropriateness of the model, which we refer to as the MD-conjecturing Model. Furthermore the study shed light onto a relationship between abductive processes and use of MD, and motivated the introduction of the notion of instrumented abduction. The study has implications for the design of activities based on the use of maintaining dragging with the educational objective of introducing students to conjecturing and proving in geometry.


The hypothalamus has an important etiological role in the onset and maintenance of hypertension and stress responses in the Schlager high blood pressure (BP) (BPH/2J) mouse, a genetic model of neurogenic hypertension. Using Affymetrix GeneChip Mouse Gene 1.0 ST Arrays we identified 1,019 hypothalamic genes whose expression differed between 6 wk old BPH/2J and normal BP (BPN/3J) strains, and 466 for 26 wk old mice. Of these, 459 were in 21 mouse BP quantitative trait loci. We validated 46 genes by qPCR. Gene changes that would increase sympathetic outflow at both ages were: Dynll1 encoding dynein light chain LC8-type 1, which physically destabilizes neuronal nitric oxide synthase, decreasing neuronal nitric oxide, and Hcrt encoding hypocretin and Npsr1 encoding neuropeptide S receptor 1, each involved in sympathetic response to stress. At both ages we identified genes for inflammation, such as CC-chemokine ligand 19 (Ccl19), and oxidative stress. Via reactive oxygen species generation, these could contribute to oxidative damage. Other genes identified could be responding to such perturbations. Atp2b1, the major gene from genome-wide association studies of BP variation, was underexpressed in the early phase. Comparison of profiles of young and adult BPH/2J mice, after adjusting for maturation genes, pointed to the proopiomelanocortin-α gene (Pomc) and neuropeptide Y gene (Npy), among others, as potentially causative. The present study has identified a diversity of genes and possible mechanisms involved in hypertension etiology and maintenance in the hypothalamus of BPH/2J mice, highlighting both common and divergent processes in each phase of the condition.


The aim of the study was to obtain details of the morphology of the autonomic innervation of pancreas. Six adult Egyptian spiny mice (Acomys cahirinus, Desmarest) were studied for the presence and location of autonomic fibres and cells in the pancreas. The macromorphological investigations were performed using the thiocholine method adapted for this type of specimens. For processing tissues two histochemical techniques were used: thiocholine method on activity of AChE and the glyoxylic acid method for adrenergic structures. Cholinergic fibres and small autonomic ganglia were found among the secretory sections and along the pancreatic duct and both pancreaticoduodenal arteries, and its branches, reaching the Langerhans islets and forming around them a kind of net. From 24 to 40 AChE-positive ganglions in the whole exocrine part were observed. The highest density of cholinergic fibres was observed in the head of pancreas. Numerous adrenergic fibres that accompanied blood vessels as well as interlobular and intralobular ducts were found inside the exocrine parts of the pancreas. Neither adrenergic cells or adrenergic fibres were observed inside the pancreatic islets. Our results can be used in comparative anatomy studies of pancreas in mammals.


Abstract. The northwest basins of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are regions of intense Western Boundary Currents (WBC), the Gulf Stream and the Kuroshio. The variability of these poleward currents and their extension in the open ocean is of major importance to the climate system. It is largely dominated by in-phase meridional shifts downstream of the points where they separate from the coast. Tide gauges on the adjacent coastlines have measured the inshore sea level for many decades and provide a unique window on the past of the oceanic circulation. The relationship between coastal sea level and the variability of the western boundary currents has been previously studied in each basin separately but comparison between the two basins is missing. Here we show for each basin, that the inshore sea level upstream the separation points is in sustained agreement with the meridional shifts of the western boundary current extension over the period studied, i.e. the past seven (five) decades in the Atlantic (Pacific). Decomposition of the coastal sea level into principal components allows us to discriminate this variability in the upstream sea level from other sources of variability such as the influence of large meanders in the Pacific. This result suggests that prediction of inshore sea-level changes could be improved by the inclusion of meridional shifts of the western boundary current extensions as predictors. Conversely, long duration tide gauges, such as Key West, Fernandina Beach or Hosojima could be used as proxies for the past meridional shifts of the western boundary current extensions.


Dr. Richard G. McCollum: The patient is a 43-year-old farmer who sustained an injury to his right arm when he fell from a hayloft approximately 10 feet above the ground, landing on his hands with his arms in extension. He noted immediate pain in his right elbow and wrist, and was taken to a local hospital. Roentgenological studies there revealed a dislocation of the right elbow with fracture of the radial head and a severely comminuted fracture of the distal radius. A posterior splint was applied, and the patient was transferred to the Emergency Ward at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Thorough physical examination revealed abnormalities only in his upper extremities. The right elbow was markedly swollen and held in 30° of flexion. The olecranon was quite prominent posteriorly and laterally, and the patient resisted active and passive motion of the elbow. There was also tenderness and swelling of the right


Discipline and Department Research Guides identify and define standard information retrieval tools for a specific department or discipline. Each guide was created and is maintained by the library liaison for that department. We encourage you to recommend


We present an explicit computation of matrix elements of the Hamiltonian constraint operator in non-perturbative quantum gravity. In particular, we consider the Euclidean term of Thiemann's version of the constraint and compute its action on trivalent states, for all its natural orderings. The calculation is performed using graphical techniques from the recoupling theory of coloured knots and links. We exhibit the matrix elements of the Hamiltonian constraint operator in the spin-network basis in compact algebraic form.


The article gives an overview of the form and function of negative concord in German dialects (Alemannic, Bavarian, Upper Franconian varieties, West Central German, East Central German, West Low German, East Low German, Silesian, East Pomeranian, Low Prussian), with a focus on Upper German. The study is based on spontaneous speech data from the 1950s until the 1980s and shows that negative doubling and negative spread (in German: 'doppelte Negation mit Satznegation' and 'doppelte Negation ohne Satznegation') are two different negation types, thus there is no correlation between them as generally assumed (Haspelmath 1997; Zeijlstra 2004). Furthermore negative doubling is not obligatory, but seems to be conditioned by pragmatics.


The homogeneous electrochemical reduction of CO₂ by the molecular catalyst [Ni(cyclam)]2+ was studied by electrochemistry and infrared spectroelectrochemistry. This catalyst has been previously shown to have increased CO₂ reduction activity when adsorbed on a mercury electrode. The homogeneous reactivity, without a mercury electrode, was often ignored in the literature. Ni(cyclam) was found to efficiently and selectively produce CO at moderate overpotentials in both aqueous and mixed organic solvent systems in a homogenous fashion at an inert glassy carbon electrode. Methylated analogs of Ni(cyclam) were also studied and observed to have more positive reduction potentials and attenuated CO₂ reduction activity. The electrochemical kinetics were probed by varying CO₂ substrate and proton concentrations. Products of CO₂ reduction are observed in infrared spectra obtained from spectroelectrochemical experiments. The two major species observed were a Ni(I) carbonyl, [Ni(cyclam)(CO)]⁺, and a Ni(II) coordinated bicarbonate, [Ni(cyclam)(CO₂OH)]⁺. The rate-limiting step during electrocatalysis was determined to be CO loss from the deactivated species, [Ni(cyclam)(CO)]+, to produce the active catalyst, [Ni(cyclam)]+. Another macrocyclic complex, [Ni(TMC)]⁺, was deployed as a CO scavenger in order to inhibit the deactivation of [Ni(cyclam)]⁺ by CO. Addition of the CO scavenger was shown to dramatically increase the catalytic current observed for CO₂ reduction by [Ni(cyclam)]⁺. Evidence for the [Ni(TMC)]⁺ acting as a CO scavenger includes the observation of [Ni(TMC)(CO)]⁺ by IR. Density functional theory calculations, probing the optimized geometry of the [Ni(cyclam)(CO)]⁺ species, are also presented. These findings have implications on the increased activity for CO₂ reduction when [Ni(cyclam)]⁺ is adsorbed on a mercury electrode. The [Ni(cyclam)(CO)]⁺ structure has significant distortion of the Ni center out of the plane of the cyclam nitrogens. This distortion strengthens the Ni-CO interaction by increasing back- bonding interactions. This leads to the hypothesis that the mercury surface, through Hg-Ni interactions, prevents the distorted geometry seen in solution leading to a more planar geometry. This helps to destabilize the carbonyl adduct which inhibits the extent of CO poisoning of the catalyst when adsorbed on a mercury electrode. Alternative approaches to prevent CO poisoning without using such a toxic substance as mercury are critical to improving this unique catalytic system


Interfacial adhesion between the Epoxy Molding Compound (EMC) and the copper-based leadframe is one of the major concerns in the qualification of plastic packages. Since the conventional shear testing methods used in industry do not consider the residual stresses in the shear samples, they are only used as a qualitative testing method for the EMC qualifications. However, since these tests are based on the maximum force leading to interface delamination, they may cause erroneous results because of neglecting process-induced stresses, which may alter the required force needed to break the samples at the interface. Even classical fracture mechanics, based on mechanical load leading to crack propagation, may not fully characterize the interfacial fracture toughness, because the residual stresses available in the sample impede or facilitate the crack progress, depending on the state of the stresses at the crack tip. The aim of this work is to propose an effective selection criterion for finding the most suitable epoxy molding compound in terms of the intrinsic interfacial adhesion. The effect of residual stresses on the interfacial fracture toughness was investigated by performing an empirical approach to calculate the amount of the cure shrinkage by warpage measurement of the bi-material beams. The effective cure was implemented in the Finite Element Analysis (FEA) of the experimental fracture test to estimate the real interface adhesion. It was observed, that the proper molding compound candidate to fulfill the adhesion requirements was not the one which showed the maximum fracture force and material selection may be done wrongly, if the process-induced stresses are not considered in the FEA of the fracture tests.


In the region of La Spezia (Ligurian Sea, Italy), the bryozoan Schzoporella errata forms sizeable buildups, termed 'giant colonies' or 'compound colonies' by previous investigators. Buildups were encrusting (up to 40 cm wide) with flat or bumpy surfaces in an exposed site, and erect (more than 20 cm high) branching anastornosed structures in a semi-exposed and in a sheltered site. The buildup architecture was significantly different in the 3 sites, with hlgher vertical development and number of branches per dm2 in the sheltered site. The internal structure of the buildups was also different: densely packed, extensive laminated sheets developed in the sheltered site; loosely packed, concentric sheets alternating with small cavities filled with sediment and shells of associated organisms were found in the semi-exposed and exposed sites. Functional groups could be recognised among the biota associated with S. errata buildups. The constructional pattern was interpreted as resulting from both interactions with other organisms and hydrodynamic conditions. While in the exposed site S. errata showed no vertical growth, in the sheltered site soft-bodied erect organisms formed the frame around which S. errata deposited a multilayered structure, which eventually caused the death and disappearance of the immured organisms. Breakage of branch tips by episodic disturbance and repeated binding through a complex array of budding patterns by S. errata resulted in tall buildups which preserved no trace of the soft-bodied organisms. Because of the role they played, these may therefore be defined as 'ghost frame-builders'.


Retrieval and management of Web data is becoming a more and more complex problem, due to the amount of information to be dealt with, to the diversity of the information sources and of the data formats, and to the evolving expectations of users. In particular, some tasks such as quality assessment, opinion making, and sense extraction cannot be completely delegated to automatic procedures. More and more users are increasingly relying on social interaction to complete and validate the results of their online activities. For instance, scouting "interesting" results, or suggesting new, unexpected search directions in information seeking processes occurs in most times aside of the search systems and processes, possibly instrumented and mediated by a social network. In this paper we propose paradigm that embodies crowds and social network communities as first-class sources for the information management and extraction on the Web. Our approach aims at filling the gap between traditional Web systems (CMS, search engines and others), which operate upon world-wide information, with social systems, capable of interacting with real people, in real time, to capture their opinions, suggestions, and emotions by leveraging crowd sourcing practices and making them viable upon a social network. This enormously enriches the data manipulation experience for the user can be enormously enriched.


This article critiques the idea that the private sector can take the lead in addressing the capital needs of underserved communities, focusing specifically on the emerging domestic markets approach advocated by Milken Institute researchers. This approach has three limitations. First, it treats all underserved communities as interchangeable, ignoring that they differ in important ways in the nature and causes of their capital constraints. Second, it claims that underserved communities lack access to capital primarily as a result of information failure, overlooking numerous other obstacles that discourage investment in such communities. Third, its overarching assumption that the private sector can take the lead in meeting the capital needs of underserved communities is unrealistic because it fails to address these additional barriers to investment. The article recommends a more individualized approach to understanding the capital needs of underserved communities and recognition of the need for public sector leadership in solving this problem.


: A five year study was conducted to determine the appropriate frequency for routine changing of condom catheters in males with spinal cord injury. One hundred and thirteen outpatient subjects participated in a non-randomized study. Eighty subjects changed their condom catheters on a daily basis, and 33 changed their condom catheters every other day. The subjects were questioned and the clinic record was reviewed by a nurse clinician about the incidence of skin and urinary complications occurring in the previous year. The most common skin complication found in both groups was redness, followed by excoriation. The most common urinary complication reported by both groups was urinary tract infection, followed by bladder and renal stones. There was no significant difference found in the incidence of skin or urinary complications between the subjects who changed their condom catheters daily and those who changed their condom catheters every other day. It is recommended that selected patients can change their condom catheters every other day as long as appropriate guidelines are followed.


In order to assess whether students fully grasped the six teaching standards in the Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics (NCTM, 1991), the researcher had each student submit peer evaluations of the team lessons that were taught in a Methods and Materials of Teaching Mathematics in the Middle Grades class during the Fall semester of 2003. The intent of this study was to observe the consistency between the student peer evaluations and instructor evaluation of each team lesson based upon the six teaching standards that were addressed during the first ten weeks of class. The class consisted of twenty-one students, four of whom were traditional students with no prior teaching experience and 17 of whom were special licensure students who were currently teaching in area public schools. The class was divided into nine teams of two students. Three students decided to present individually. Students were given a list of topics to select for their presentations. The teams developed twenty-minute lessons to present to their classmates. After reviewing the comments given during each lesson it was evident that at least 70% of the students in the class could recognize and state evidence of the six teaching standards. After reviewing the results the researcher concluded that students definitely need to put into practice the theory, strategies and techniques learned during the semester in which the methods course is being taken. ********** Purpose The intent of this study was to observe the consistency between student peer evaluations and instructor evaluations of team taught lessons based upon the six teaching standards in the Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics (NCTM, 1991). The six standards, which include: (1) worthwhile mathematical tasks, (2) teacher's role in discourse, (3) student's role in discourse, (4) tools for enhancing discourse, (5) learning environment and (6) analysis of teaching and learning, were addressed during the first ten weeks of the fall 2003 semester in the Methods and Materials of Teaching Mathematics in the Middle Grades class. Review of Literature Peer evaluation has long played a significant role in leader nomination and performance measurement among business, education, medical, and research professionals (Kramer, 1990). Outside of these spheres, however, peer evaluation has been approached with trepidation, resulting generally, from the perception that peer evaluations are nothing more than a popularity contest (Sherrard & Raafat, 1994). Deming contends that levels and standards of performance should not be imposed by a hierarchical authority (i.e. professor) but rather achieved at through coalition building and empowerment of employees (Spragins, 1991). Having peers evaluate performance and establish standards increases their involvement. helps them adopt a supervisory perspective, and enhances both the accuracy of the ratings as well as the quality of the feedback (Leavitt, 1964). Previous research has illustrated the potential for peer assessment to improve evaluation accuracy by including the perspective from individuals of the same level (Kane & Lawler, 1978; Lewin & Zwany, 1976; Reilly & Chao, 1982). Klimoski and London (1974) also indicate that coworkers/peers make finer distinctions among different aspects of performance than do supervisor evaluations. As a result, feedback from peers is more effective in eliciting behavioral changes than supervisor ratings (DeNisi, Randolph, & Blencoe, 1982). Methodology The class consisted of twenty-one students. Four students were traditional students with no prior teaching experience and seventeen were special licensure students who were currently teaching in area public schools. Each semester the students present team taught lessons. However, students were asked for the first time to evaluate each other in teams. …


In this paper, we propose a new approach for the development of load control policies in autonomic multitier systems. We control system load in a completely new way compared to existing policies: we leverage on the autocorrelation of service times and show that autocorrelation can be used to forecast future service requirements of requests and adaptively control system load. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first direct application of autocorrelation of service times to autonomic load control. We propose ALoC and D ALoC, two autocorrelation-driven policies that drop a percentage of the load in order to meet pre-defined quality-of-service levels in a distributed system. Both policies are easy to implement and rely on minimal assumptions. In particular, D ALoC is a fully no-knowledge measurement-based policy that self-adjusts its load control parameters based only on policy targets and on statistical information of requests served in the past. We illustrate the effectiveness of these new policies in a distributed multi-server setting via detailed trace driven simulations. We show that if these policies are employed in the server with a temporal dependent service process, then end-to-end response time, across all servers, reduces up to 80% by only dropping at most 13% of the incoming requests. Using real traces, we also show that, in the constrained case of being able to drop only from a portion of the incoming workload, our policy still improves request response time by up to 30%.


Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) is a social theatre methodology that offers creative tools and generative processes through which participants can aesthetically explore their individual and collective struggles and oppressions. In these processes the practitioner strives to create moments in which participants can examine the power dynamics present in these struggles and rehearse possibilities for transforming them in positive ways. However, while the practice is well established, research into this potentially transformative and generative work is in its infancy.

This autoethnographic thesis explores my TO practice in order to better understand the work, add knowledge to the field, and improve the practices themselves. Through phenomenological reflection and action learning, I explore what I bring to the work in order to facilitate the possibility for change in others, and what enhances or hinders that process.

This research is located within three case studies: a project dealing with sexual abuse and violence with 13 Aboriginal young women; men in a domestic violence 'perpetrator' program; and a community youth Forum Theatre project focusing on respectful relationships.

Three key elements emerged as essential for the practitioner in order to animate the dynamics of theatre as tool for engagement and dialogue: motivation, presence and reflection. Motivation is the foundation for perseverance, 4 commitment, patience and connection. Second, being present, or 'presencing', the generative act of allowing the story, the action, to emerge, supports the possibility for dialogue. Third, reflexivity is the key to learning; extracting what the learning is, applying it, and preparing for it by holding in tension the 'unknown' and moving towards 'resolution/s'.

Furthermore transformation is not something that can be prescribed for someone else, but rather is a trajectory where participant and practitioner can travel together; a journey in which ultimately both are affected.

Finally, questions of engagement and of top-down driven, issue-based work arise that call for further investigation.


This paper presents a theoretical analysis and a comparison with experimental results on self-mixing interference inside a single-longitudinal-mode diode laser. A theoretical model, based on the steady-state equations of the lasing condition in a Fabry-Perot type laser cavity, is described, and through it a satisfactory analysis of self-mixing interference for optical sensing applications is given. In this work, the self-mixing interference produced by an external optical feedback is found to be due to the variations in the threshold gain and in the spectral distribution of the laser output. The gain variation results in an optical intensity modulation, and the spectral variation determines both the modulation waveform and the coherence properties of the interference. The theoretical analysis of the self-mixing interference is seen to yield a simulation of the laser power modulation which is in good agreement with the experiment results reported. >


Stress fibers, composed of actin filaments, converge upon and associate with a number of proteins, including focal adhesion kinase (p125FAK), and integrin receptors to form areas of close contact between cells and the extracellular matrix referred to as focal adhesions. Treatment of mesangial cells with cAMP-elevating agents causes a loss of focal adhesions, fragmentation of stress fibers, and decreased tyrosine phosphorylation of p125FAK. Thrombin reverses these effects of cAMP, and this model can be used to address some of the cellular mechanisms involved in regulating the loss and formation of focal adhesions. This study reports the effects of cAMP and thrombin on mesangial cell shape, distribution of actin, formation of stress fibers, and tyrosine phosphorylation of p125FAK. cAMP-treated cells display a condensed cell body with slender processes that traverse the area formerly covered by the cell. Addition of thrombin to these cells restores actin filaments (stress fibers) and increases tyrosine phosphorylation of p125FAK, and the cells resume a flattened morphology, even in the continued presence of cAMP-elevating agents. Peptides that mimic the tethered ligand portion of the thrombin receptor have the same effects on cell morphology and stress fiber formation as thrombin. In selected experiments, agents that disrupt either stress fibers (cytochalasin D) or microtubules (nocodazole; Sigma Chemical, St. Louis, MO) were used to examine the role of these cytoskeletal elements in thrombin-induced restoration of focal adhesions. Cytochalasin D blocked the ability of thrombin to restore focal adhesions and phosphorylate p125FAK. The effects of nocodazole, an agent that destabilizes microtubules (but which has no known receptor), are very similar to those of thrombin. The findings discussed in this study indicate that thrombin can modulate the formation of focal adhesions. The organization of stress fibers and microtubules is apparently intimately related to the phosphorylation of p125FAK and can be modulated by soluble receptor agonists such as thrombin or via altered polymerization of microtubules.


As one of the few known species in an active phase of intron proliferation, the microcrustacean Daphnia pulex is an especially attractive system for interrogating the gain and loss of introns in natural populations. In this study, we used a comparative population-genomic approach to identify and characterize 90 recently gained introns in this species. Molecular clock analyses indicate that these introns arose between 3.9 × 105 and 1.45 × 104 years ago, with a spike in intron proliferation approximately 5.2 × 104 to 1.22 × 105 years ago. Parallel gains at homologous positions contribute to 47.8% (43/90) of discovered new introns. A disproportionally large number of new introns were found in historically isolated populations in Oregon. Nonetheless, derived, intron-bearing alleles were also identified in a wide range of geographic locations, suggesting intron gain and, to a lesser degree, intron loss are important sources of genetic variation in natural populations of Daphnia. A majority (55/90 or 61.1%) of the identified neointrons have associated internal direct repeats with lengths and compositions that are unlikely to occur by chance, suggesting repeated bouts of staggered double-strand breaks (DSBs) during their evolution. Accordingly, internal, staggered DSBs may contribute to a passive trend toward increased length and sequence diversity in nascent introns.


This paper describes the new design of the local four-sensor probe which was used to
measure the velocity vector of the bubbly gas-liquid two phase flow in the pipe which
diameter is 80mm. The bubble velocity vector can be calculated from seven time intervals
taken from the output signals from each of four conductance sensors located within the local
four-sensor probe. Based on the four sensor probe signals, a new signal processing technique
was introduced which can improved the accuracy of the measurement results. The test results
of bubbly flow in the tank, in the flow loop and the bubbly, swirling flow are presented in this
paper as well. The four-sensor probe can be used as a calibration method for the dual-plane EIT
system.


ABSTRACT Waulsortian type carbonate banks in central Montana were diagenetically altered in three major stages: before, during, and after subaerial exposure of the tops of the banks. Before subaerial exposure, cloudy radiaxial fibrous drusy mosaic was precipitated as aragonite on all free internal surfaces. Opaline silica was dissolved, and small amounts of chalcedonic chert replaced parts of fossils and the fibrous mosaic. With partial emergence of the banks, the lime mud and fossils were altered, clear equant-grained drusy mosaic calcite and euhedra of dolomite were formed in centers of cavities lined with fibrous crusts, and seepage refluxion of hypersaline water formed an irregular zone of dolostone at the tops of the banks. Other changes involved weathering of the exposed surface, dilatational fracturing, dissolution of cavelike openings within the banks, and filling of the fractures and openings with crinoid debris. After resubmergence, the banks were engulfed by continued Lodgepole limestone deposition. Late in diagenesis a minor amount of dedolomitization occurred, and, perhaps, microspar (Folk, 1965) formed neomorphically.


We discuss the penetration of organic pollutants into the depth of soil and into groundwater under different environmental and geological conditions. In one case a field study was conducted on the impact of prolonged irrigation by effluents on groundwater and vadose zone contamination. The studied site was rich in sandy soil which allowed vertical penetration of pollutants into the depth. A significant difference has been observed in the distribution of organic pollutants in the effluent irrigated site, where the pollution increased markedly while descending from the top soil into the unsaturated zone, compared to the two control sites, where the extent of pollution decreased strongly with the depth. It seems that detergents and other surfactants present in the effluents strongly enhance the transport of organic components via the unsaturated zone. The second case study deals with the transport of organic pollutants in a site where the subsoil is interspaced with clay layers. In this case groundwater pollution derived from the chemical waste of a pesticides plant. A long term follow up of groundwater pollution indicates that the typical contaminant distribution pattern remained unchanged during the years. The pollutants distribution indicates that in this area the penetration of organic pollutants does not occur vertically but rather by horizontal flow, due to inhibition of vertical migration by a thick clay layer present in this area.


Background
Thyroid dysfunction is a clinical condition associated with low levels of thyroid hormone (hypothyroidism) which produces variety of manifestations affecting peripheral nervous system.
Objectives: To evaluate and compare the peripheral changes (neuromuscular dysfunction) by using electrophysiological tests in hypo thyroid patients and to compare the pattern of neuromuscular involvement between hypothyroidism and control group.
Materials and methods: Prospective study was conducted in patients of kanchipuram district with diagnosed thyroid dysfunction 40 hypothyroid patients, and 40 controlled subjects. All participants were subjected to electro diagnostic evaluation.
Results: There was significant polyneuropathy in hypothyroid patients but none was found in control group. There was significant polyneuropathy mainly axonal in hypothyroid groups but none in the control group. In upper limb 85% had sensory neuropathy and 20% have motor neuropathy among hypothyroid group. As for the lower limbs, 70% sensory neuropathy and 60% motor neuropathy among hypothyroid group. Entrapment neuropathy in the form of carpal tunnel syndrome was found in 30 %, 20% of the hypothyroid, and control group respectively.
Conclusion: Thyroid dysfunction affects both central and peripheral nervous system, There is definite subclinical sensori -neurological involvement in early stages which can be assessed by nerve conduction studies and need to be intervened as early as and can be reversed by treatment.


Interdisciplinary care is the foundation of hospice service for the terminally ill. This model of care includes a holistic focus on the patient and family, including not only physical and medical management but also psychological and spiritual needs. The importance of social issues is acknowledged and supported through federal and state regulations requiring social work and spiritual counseling services as a part of the hospice care team. State regulatory reports were analyzed to identify compliance issues for social workers and spiritual counselors within hospice programs in a midwestern state. Problems with care planning, assessment, and bereavement services were identified in this process. Deficiencies point to the opportunities for social work educators to improve the training of future hospice social workers and the challenges involved in training spiritual counselors.


Distributed software development (DSD) has become increasingly popular due to benefits such as cost savings, access to large multi-skilled workforces and a reduced time to market. Agile practices can potentially help increase transparency and mitigate communication and coordination issues in these complex environments. While empirical studies in the field exist, most are single-case studies that miss out on the chance to compare different distribution scenarios, which calls for further investigation. We report on results of a four-year exploratory multiple-case study investigating the agile process implementation in three different distribution scenarios: within-city, within-country and within-continent. We purposefully selected the three different cases and found ten common heuristics emerge which are based on empirical evidence in at least two cases as well as four further candidate heuristics that lack evidence in more than one case. In particular, the understanding of and adaptation to each development site's inherent challenges, travelling ambassadors/proxies between sites, and a balanced distribution of decision makers proved to be important heuristics for a successful process implementation.


Welcoming the renewed interest in value among geographers, we engage with the arguments that Kay and Kenney-Lazar (2017) put forward in their article, 'Value in Capitalist Natures: An Emerging Framework'. We organize our contribution around three important aspects that can advance current debates and propose an agenda for future research. Firstly, we argue that current debates need to refocus from whether nature contributes to material wealth to whether and how nature relates to the value form under capitalism. Secondly, we highlight the need for a systematically joint analysis of value and rent to understand the role of nature in capitalism. This analysis leads to a focus on class and class struggle and requires interdisciplinary collaborations between nature–society geographers and other scholars working within the value theoretical framework to bridge current struggles over rent and value. Thirdly, contra Kay and Kenney-Lazar, we argue that beyond capitalism we do not need either alternative valuation systems or value but rather a new vocabulary to redefine social needs and social wealth.


The financial surplus of agriculture has been central to theories of the role of agriculture in economic development. Morrisson and Thorbecke (MT) have used a constant-price social accounting matrix (SAM) framework to measure rigorously the financial surplus of agriculture and decompose the mechanisms of surplus extraction. History and theory have, however, stressed the role of prices as an invisible transfer mechanism in addition to the visible transfers identified in the SAM framework. We extend the MT approach by defining and measuring the real surplus of agriculture and decomposing the mechanisms of surplus extraction between visible and invisible financial transfers. Using an archetype computable general equilibrium model for poor African nations, we trace the generation, transfer, and use of an agricultural surplus created by a productivity gain in agriculture. This shows that prices indeed play an overwhelmingly important role in transferring a surplus from agriculture to the benefit of the rest of the economy.


For single-point measurements of quasi-perpendicular shocks, analytical measurements of the foot width are often used to evaluate the velocity of the shock relative to the satellite. This velocity is of crucial importance for in situ observations because it enables the identification of the spatial scale of other regions of the shock front such as a magnetic ramp for which the comprehensive understanding of their formation is not yet achieved. Knowledge of the spatial scale is one of the key parameters for the validation of theoretical models that are developed to explain the formation of these regions. Previously available estimates of the foot width for a quasi-perpendicular shock are based on several simplifications such as zero upstream ion temperature and specular ion reflection by the cross-shock electrostatic potential. The occurrence of specular reflection implies high values of the cross-shock electrostatic potential that significantly exceed the values obtained from in situ measurements. In this paper the effects of nonzero ion temperature and nonspecular ion reflection on the foot width are investigated. It is shown that in the case of nonspecular reflection the foot width can be as small as half of the size of the standard widely used estimate. Results presented here enable more reliable identification of the shock velocity from single-point observations.


Asexual forms of invertebrates are relatively common. They are often more successful than their sexual progenitors. Especially in insects, the pattern called geographical parthenogenesis shows that asexuality is important in speciation and ecological adaptation. In geographical parthenogenesis the clones have a wider distribution than the sexual forms they originate from. This indicates that they have a broader niche they may utilize successfully. The cause of this apparent success is, however, hard to come by as the term asexuality covers separate phenomena that are hard to disentangle from the mode of reproduction itself. Asexual insects are often polyploid, of hybrid origin, or both and these phenomena have been argued to explain the distribution patterns better than clonality. In this study we survey the literature on arthropods with geographical parthenogenesis in an attempt to clarify what evidence there is for the different phenomena explaining the success of the clonal forms. We focus on the few species where knowledge of distribution of different ploidy levels allows for a distinction of contributions from different phenomena to be made. Our survey support that asexuality is not the only factor underlying the success of all asexuals. Evidence about the importance of a hybrid origin of the clones is found to be meagre as the origin of clones is unknown in the majority of cases. Asexuality, hybridity and polyploidy are intertwined phenomena that each and all may contribute to the success of clonal taxa. Polyploidy, however, emerges as the most parsimonious factor explaining the success of these asexual invertebrate taxa.


A few commonly held beliefs regarding the vertical structure of tropical cyclones drawn from prior studies, bothobservationalandtheoretical,areexaminedinthisstudy.Oneofthesebeliefsisthattheoutwardslopeof the radius of maximumwinds (RMW)is a function of the size of the RMW. Another belief is that the outward slope of the RMW is also a function of the intensity of the storm. Specifically, Shea and Gray found that the RMW becomes increasingly vertical with increasing intensity and decreasing radius. The third belief evaluated here is that the RMW is a surface of constant absolute angular momentum M. These three conventional wisdoms of vertical structure are revisited with a dataset of three-dimensional Doppler wind analyses, comprising seven hurricanes on 17 different days. Azimuthal mean tangential winds are calculated for each storm,andtheslopesoftheRMWandMsurfacesareobjectivelydetermined.TheoutwardslopeoftheRMW is shown to increase with radius, which supports prior studies. In contrast to prior results, no relationship is found between the slope of the RMW and intensity.It is shown that the RMW is indeed closely approximated by an M surface for the majority of storms. However, there is a small but systematic tendency for M to decrease upward along the RMW. Utilizing Emanuel's analytical hurricane model, a new equation is derived for the slope of the RMW in radius‐pressure space. This predicts a linear increase of slope with radius and essentiallyno dependence of slope on intensity.An exactly analogous equationcan be derivedin log-pressure height coordinates, and a numerical solution yields the same conclusions in geometric height coordinates. These conclusions are further supported by the results of simulations utilizing Emanuel's simple, timedependent, axisymmetric hurricane model. As both the model and the analytical theory are governed by the dual constraints of thermal wind balance and slantwise moist neutrality, it is demonstrated that it is these two assumptionsthat requirethe slope of the RMW to be a functionof its size but not of the intensityof the storm. Finally, it is shown that within the context of Emanuel's theory, the RMW must very closely approximate an M surface through most of the depth of the vortex.


Animated television programs have been considered an integral element of the 'media mix' or transmedia in Japan. In multiple contexts, the place of such television shows has been framed as a '30-minute commercial' or 'program length commercial'. This article examines the 2014 anime and media mix Yo-kai Watch as an example of the animation episode as something else: part of a call towards total mobilization. Taking seriously the incendiary remarks by one of Japan's media mix pioneers – Kadokawa Haruki – who claimed that his model for the media mix was taken from Hitler's 'total mobilization' of fashion, sound, and image for a nationalist endgame, this article considers the Yo-kai Watch media mix in light of the concept of total mobilization. Through a close analysis of the objects, games and animation of Yo-Kai Watch, the author suggests that the endgame of this media mix geared towards very young audiences is their total mobilization towards collection-based consumption. This means thinking a 'logistics of consumption' that requires in part an examination of the circulation of objects as well as the function of the anime as an incitement and manual to play.


Quaternary benzo[c]phenanthridine alkaloids (QBA) are naturally
occurring products with noteworthy antiproliferative activity
and fluorescence characteristics. QBA are commonly isolated
from plants of Fumariaceae, Papaveraceae, Ranunculaceae and
Rutaceae families. Among them, sanguinarine, chelerythrine and
fagaronin are the best recognized and characterized. We focused
on minor QBA derivatives - macarpine (MA), sanguirubine (SR)
and chelirubine (CHR) - and studied their antiproliferative,
pro-apoptotic and anti-microtubule activity on human cell
lines. In addition, we have observed interesting fluorescent
characteristics of these molecules upon intercalating into DNA
in live cells. We have proved that MA, SR, CHR can be used as
supravital fluorescent DNA probes both in fluorescence
microscopy and flow cytometry. When added to intact cell
suspensions, water stock solutions of the alkaloids stain the
cells upon brief (in seconds) incubation at low final
concentration (0,01-0,001 mg/ml). We have also evaluated the
convenience of minor QBA as supravital nucleic acid probes for
time effective multiparameter immunophenotyping of peripheral
blood and bone marrow leukocytes. Heparinized peripheral blood
or bone marrow aspirate cells were stained on the surface with
a combination of fluorochrome-conjuagted monoclonal antibodies
directed against surface markers. Then, an appropriate amount
of individual QBA was added and, upon dilution, the samples
were acquired on a standard (FACSCalibur) or polychromatic
(CyAn) flow cytometer. Our results show that spectral
characteristics of individual QBA allow for simultaneous
surface immunophenotyping and semiquantitative DNA
determination. MA, SR and CHR are excitable by common argon
lasers (488 nm) emmiting at the range 575 - 750 nm (i.e.
fluorescence channels 2-5). Fluorescence channels 1 and 5 – 7
are available for surface immunophenotyping on FACSCalibur and
CyAn, respectively.


The success for any organization is implied in achieving its strategic objective and goal, which is mostly achieved while relying and focusing on motivation level of its employees, and it is nonfinancial rewards that increase intrinsic motivation within employees yet most organizations have been emphasizing extrinsic rewards such as money, which for one reason or the other don't energize or drives employees for better performance. Therefore, the current research study sought to examine the effect of non-financial rewards on motivation and performance in MoIA. The objective of this research was to examine how motivation out of non-financial rewards impacts employee performance in the MoIA, Uganda. The study adopted a descriptive survey design on a target population of 152 staffs of MoIA, Department of Citizenship and Immigration Control out of which a sample of 110 was drawn using stratified random and purposive sampling techniques. Data was collected from 100 employees by means of a questionnaire supplemented with interviews, descriptive statistics, correlation and regression analysis were used to examine the effects of the variables i.e., non-financial rewards, motivation and performance. The study results showed that, the correlation coefficient between non-financial rewards and motivation was 0.449 with p-value of 0.000 indicating statistically a positive significant relationship while the correlation coefficient between non-financial rewards and performance was 0.175 with p-value of 0.081 showing no positive significant relationship between motivation and performance. This therefore suggests that when there is effective nonfinancial reward management, motivation improves accordingly but motivation doesn't directly influence performance. The recommendations given for this study therefore, are to help MoIA to review its motivational policy in relation to performance.


Health professionals and their patients have every reason to feel confused. One week the WHO issues a position paper calling for strict regulations on electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), more commonly referred to as electronic cigarettes, including restrictions on marketing and a ban on using them in enclosed public spaces.1 The next week, a group of scientists attracts widespread media attention, with headlines claiming that these products could save 50 000 lives in the UK,2 although this figure appears nowhere in the corresponding paper.3 What is one to make of these conflicting messages?

Before reviewing the evidence, some context is necessary. For several decades the tobacco industry, which has been rapidly increasing its share of the market for ENDS sold in the UK,4 has actively sought to create confusion. It did this very successfully when it sought to block bans on smoking in public places, engaging in a massive campaign of deception.5 It sought to portray second-hand smoke as harmless, even though its own research showed that sidestream smoke was even more toxic than directly inhaled smoke.6 It also promoted the idea that a ban would hit the takings of bars and restaurants, even though it had funded the only research to show such an effect.7 As one of its leading scientists claimed, in discussions with lawyers advising on the tobacco industry's strategy, 'he could bring a healthy scepticism to … some of the claims being made about environmental tobacco smoke'.6 The industry has also been very good at displacing attention from more important issues, and it is noteworthy that, since the apparent controversy about ENDS has erupted, there has been virtually no media coverage of the UK government's failure to take forward its commitment on standardised packaging, another area where industry funded …