STUDY OBJECTIVE: General practitioners (GPs) working in deprived areas supposedly have higher workloads. In the UK, this has led to a higher payment per patient from deprived areas, based on eight indicators of deprivation proposed by Jarman. This paper aimed to examine the applicability of the Jarman index (indicators and attached weights) at patient level in an urban GP setting outside the UK. DESIGN: Data on all GP contacts were collected from 5121 residents aged 16 and over by interview. SETTING: Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1992-93. MAIN RESULTS: Results showed that six out or eight of the Jarman indicators of deprivation were indeed associated with higher GP contact rates in adults in Amsterdam, though some of them without statistical significance. The relative importance of the indicators, however, differed largely from Jarman's weights. In particular, people in poor housing, unskilled earners, and people born in a foreign country had higher contact rates. Furthermore, some indicators were highly inter-related at patient level. CONCLUSIONS: It is concluded that most of the Jarman indicators can be used to predict Amsterdam GP workload at patient level, but that their relative weights should be adapted for this aim. The applicability of the Jarman index (indicators and attached weights) in other European countries requires additional study.


Restrictions aimed at limiting cross-border trade within the EU are prima facie unlawful, irrespective of their effects, under Articles 101 and 102 TFEU. The strict legal treatment of these practices is a function of the place and role of competition law in the Treaties. It is clear from the case law that market integration is an autonomous objective of the EU competition law system.

This paper considers some of the remaining uncertainties around territorial restrictions. First, it explains how the assessment of practices changes when market integration considerations are part of the analysis. The observed methodological shift to accommodate such considerations may be a source of confusion in practice. The Ping case, decided in the UK, provides an eloquent example in this sense.

Second, it is possible for firms to escape the prima facie prohibition of the abovementioned territorial restrictions in two circumstances. First, when the practices are objectively necessary to attain a pro-competitive aim. Second, when they are incapable of restricting competition. An analysis of the administrative practice (in particular, Pay-TV and Character Merchandise) suggests that some key questions (such as the impact of exhaustion of intellectual property rights) remain to be fully addressed.

Finally, territorial restrictions, whether they are prohibited by object or effect, can be justified under Article 101(3) TFEU (or under Article 102 TFEU, once the prima facie infringement established). However, the parsimony of the administrative practice declaring that competition law provisions are not infringed makes it difficult to anticipate the instances where a justification is possible.


Recent years have witnessed tremendous growth in the scope and sophistication of statistical methods available to explore the latent structure of psychopathology, involving continuous, discrete, and hybrid latent variables. The availability of such methods has fostered optimism that they can facilitate movement from classification primarily crafted through expert consensus to classification derived from empirically based models of psychopathological variation. The explication of diagnostic constructs with empirically supported structures can then facilitate the development of assessment tools that appropriately characterize these constructs. Our goal in this article is to illustrate how new statistical methods can inform conceptualization of personality psychopathology and therefore its assessment. We use magical thinking as an example, because both theory and earlier empirical work suggested the possibility of discrete aspects to the latent structure of personality psychopathology, particularly forms of psychopathology involving distortions of reality testing, yet other data suggest that personality psychopathology is generally continuous in nature. We directly compared the fit of a variety of latent variable models to magical thinking data from a sample enriched with clinically significant variation in psychotic symptomatology for explanatory purposes. Findings generally suggested a continuous latent variable model best represented magical thinking, but results varied somewhat depending on different indexes of model fit. We discuss the implications of the findings for classification and applied personality assessment. We also highlight some limitations of this type of approach that are illustrated by these data, including the importance of substantive interpretation, in addition to use of model fit indexes, when evaluating competing structural models.


We present a room model for thermal building simulation that we implemented in Modelica. The room model can be used for controls analysis and energy analysis of one or several rooms that are connected through airflow or heat conduction. The room model can assess energy storage in the air and in the building construction materials, heat transfer between the room and the outside environment and the humidity and CO2 release to the room air. The humidity storage in the building construction materials is not modeled. We also describe a novel separation of heat transfer mechanisms on which our room model is built on. The separation allowed a significant reduction in model development time, and it allows using state-of-the-art programs for computing prior to the thermal building simulation certain energy flows, such as solar heat gain of an active facade without breaking feedback loops between the HVAC system and the room.


The issue of which in-kind benefits should be taxed and how these benefits should be valued have concerned tax legislators, administrators, and academics since the introduction of the personal income tax system. Building her theoretical analysis on the income concept advanced by Henry Simons and relying on traditional tax policy notions of equity,neutrality, and administrative practicality, the author asserts that employees must be fully taxed on employer-provided in-kind benefits. To this effect, the article offers guidelines for distinguishing between taxable in-kind benefits and non-taxable conditions of employment. The author argues that the correct method of valuation of in-kind benefits is their fair market value, rather than the cost to the employer or the subjective value of the benefit to the employee. The article proceeds by revealing inconsistencies, inequities, and inefficiencies that have resulted from the manner in which Canadian tax administrators and courts have delineated taxability of in-kind employee benefits. Discussing such in-kind benefits as educational courses, employee trips, clothing, subsidized parking, and discounts on goods and services, the author makes suggestions that may be utilized to develop a matrix of detailed and consistent rules on the taxability of these and others in-kind benefits.


Ultrashallow Si p+n photodiodes fabricated in a pure-boron chemical-vapor-deposition (CVD) technology are investigated with respect to the relation between sensitivity to extreme-ultraviolet light and electrical performance (dark current and response time). The photodiodes are covered with a boron layer (B-layer diodes) which can be nanometer thin, allowing a quantum efficiency close to the theoretical maximum in the EUV spectral range. The experimental results presented here show that, by modifying the diode structure, both reproducible low dark current and short response time can be realized without any significant drop of the EUV sensitivity.


Biological characteristics of 102 Proteus strains isolated from the water bodies is given. The strains studied were referred to Pr. mirabilis, more rarely to Pr. vulgaris; about half of the cultures deviated from these biological types by the signs of indol formation and maltose fermentation. Proteus of groups O3, O5, O13, O23, and O30 were revealed in studying the serological characteristics. All the cultures were polyresistant, nonbacteriocinogenic; most of them were sensitive to the wide colicine spectrum. One strain produced a cytopathogenic action on the tissue culture.


The stable silicon isotopic composition d30Si of silicic acid and of biogenic opal is used as a proxy for investigating the marine silicon cycle and silicic acid utilization by diatoms both at present and in the geological past. The marine biogeochemical and physical processes involved in determining the modern d30Si distribution have not been fully understood.Hence, the usage of d30Si as a proxy for reconstruction of the marine silicon cycle and paleoproductivity by diatoms is hampered. This work is aimed at providing a comprehensive view and systematic approaches for understanding the oceanic d30Si distribution and its controlling mechanisms under both present and the last glacial maximum (LGM) climate conditions. A coupled ocean (MPI-OM)-biogeochemical (HAMOCC5.1) model is applied to simulate the marine silicon cycle and the silicon isotopic fractionation processes during biogenic opal production and dissolution.
In the present-day simulation, the surface d30Si increases along a Rayleigh type distillation curve during the utilization of silicic acid by diatoms, which demonstrates the primary control of biological fractionation on the surface d30Si distribution. The variations between the Rayleigh curves in different ocean basins, on the other hand, show the impact of physical transport of water on determination of the surface d30Si. In the deep ocean, our model captures a significant silicon isotopic gradient between the North Atlantic and the North Pacific. The advection related to the thermohaline circulation is thought to be the essential controlling factor of deep ocean d30Si. The model-data comparison implies that the usage of fractionation during biogenic opal dissolution as explanation to d30Si distribution is still speculative. The modeled silicic acid concentrations and d30Si show good agreement with the observations, when only fractionation during opal production is considered. The capability of the model to reproduce the large-scale modern oceanic d30Si distribution gives us confidence in simulating the d30Si during the LGM.
In the LGM simulation, the extension of sea-ice cover in both the Northern and the Southern Hemisphere may cause a reduction of phytoplankton growth due to low light under the ice. The silicic acid utilization by diatoms especially around Antarctica is therefore inhibited, in line with reduced biogenic opal export fluxes. Our preliminary model results of the glacial Si isotopic composition agree with the interpretation from sediment core data that silicic acid utilization by diatoms in the Southern Ocean during the LGM was diminished relative to the present interglacial.
The sensitivity of d30Si to glacial-interglacial ocean physical variations such as the strength of overturning circulation and ocean surface mixing is tested, using a simple seven-box model. The results indicate that the changes in global average d30Si due to the glacial-interglacial ocean physical variation may be of a similar magnitude as the total glacial-interglacial d30Si variation.
The modeling approach is a valid and powerful tool of promoting a mechanistic understanding of the marine biogeochemical proxy d30Si. One important advantage over common interpretation of local field studies is that models calculate isotopic fractionation without application of Rayleigh or open system approximation. In addition, the sensitivity of d30Si to various biogeochemical and physical factors can be tested systematically.


Samples of the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) were collected from soil and insects. Eight isolates were selected from rural soil, 15 from urban soil and 11 from insects. These were evaluated for entomopathogenicity against larvae of Anticarsia gemmatalis and Culex quinquefasciatus. The pathogenicity tests showed that a higher percentage of isolates were active against A. gemmatalis (60%) compared to C. quinquefasciatus (31%). Probit analysis (LC₅₀) indicated that against A. gemmatalis four of the isolates presented values similar to the reference strain against A. gemmatalis, while against C. quinquefasciatus one isolate showed an LC₅₀ similar to the reference strain (IPS-82). SDS-PAGE characterisation of two isolates showed a 27 kDa protein fraction related to the Bt subspecies israelensis cytolytic toxin (cyt) gene. One 130 kDa protein, possibly related to the Bt crystal inclusions (cry1) gene, was identified in the other two isolates, which were more toxic for lepidoptera; another isolate presented a protein of 100 kDa. Some new local Bt isolates had similar LC50 probit values to the reference strains.


Au/SiO2 nano-composite multilayer thin films with different thickness were prepared on a quartz substrate by magnetron plasma sputtering. The microstructure, morphology and optical properties of the films were investigated by using TEM and optical absorption spectra. [Au/SiO2]×5 and [Au/SiO2] × 11 multilayer thin films have well-defined interface. The thickness of the multilayer was 60nm and 130 nm for the thin films with 5 and 11 layers, respectively. The optical absorption peaks due to the surface plasma resonance appeared at a wavelength of 560 nm for the both [Au/SiO2]×5 and [Au/SiO2]×11 thin films. The intensity of the absorption peak increased with increasing numbers of deposition layers. The optical absorption spectra of Au/SiO2 multilayer thin films are well agreement with the theoretical optical absorption spectra calculated from rewritten Maxwell–Garnett effective medium theory.


Educators are challenged to prepare nurses to care for low-frequency, high-stakes problems such as trauma. Computer-based tutors provide a cost-effective teaching strategy without risking patient safety. Evidence for the efficacy of this type of instruction is limited; thus, we tested the learning outcomes of a tutor on trauma care knowledge with senior nursing students. Participants were randomly assigned to either the tutor or a control condition (textbook learning). Instructional design elements incorporated into the tutor included use of multimedia content, emphasis of key points, frequent quizzing with instant feedback, and unfolding case studies to summarize key concepts. Use of the tutor led to a larger increase in trauma nursing knowledge than use of a textbook. In addition, the knowledge was retained as well as book-based learning. The effect size of the tutor, 1.15, was relatively high as well—the average for computer tutors is 0.79. Qualitative focus groups revealed that participants expressed favorable views of the tutor in comparison to textbook learning. They found it more engaging and more enjoyable and reported that it effectively organized the content. The results of this study support the efficacy of a well-designed computer-based tutor for learning key concepts of trauma nursing.


Six pediatric patients with Raynaud's phenomenon are reported. Three patients had clinical and immunological evidence for a connective tissue disease; one had primary Raynaud's phenomenon associated with antinuclear antibodies and two had Raynaud's phenomenon secondary to exposure to lead and to a vibrating instrument, respectively. The diagnostic and therapeutic implications of these observations will be discussed.


It was the Times that broke the story. Under the headline "Struck off doctor elected to GMC" (1 May), it carried the first account of what, by any standards, was a major electoral upset. Just as Tony Blair was about to receive a bloody nose from London voters, and William Hague from those in the Romsey byelection, Britain's doctors were making their opinion felt of efforts by their leaders to reform the General Medical Council.

At first glance, the result seemed simply perverse. In a byelection for the GMC last month 50 candidates stood for one place on the disciplinary body, whose slogan is "Protecting patients, guiding doctors." Over 45 000 doctors voted, 23% of the total on the medical register. The result suggested that many who completed their ballot papers would prefer to see the GMC's slogan reversed to read "Protecting doctors, guiding patients."

Two of the three doctors who topped the poll had themselves been found guilty of serious professional misconduct by the GMC in the past. Jennifer Colman, who won with 5719 votes, was struck off the medical register in 1987 for neglect of a patient and racial abuse of a colleague. She was restored to …


Listeria monocytogenes is an important foodborne pathogen implicated in many outbreaks of listeriosis. This study aimed at screening for the potential use of Rhodomyrtus tomentosa ethanolic leaf extract as a bio-control agent against L. monocytogenes. Twenty-two L. monocytogenes isolates were checked with 16 commercial antibiotics and isolates displayed resistance to 10 antibiotics. All the tested isolates were sensitive to the extract with inhibition zones ranging from 14 to 16 mm. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) values ranged from 16 to 32 µg/mL and 128 to 512 µg/mL, respectively. Time-kill assay showed that the extract had remarkable bactericidal effects on L. monocytogenes. The extract at a concentration of 16 µg/mL reduced tolerance to 10% NaCl in L. monocytogenes in 4 h. Stationary phase L. monocytogenes cells were rapidly inactivated by greater than 3-log units within 30 min of contact time with R. tomentosa extract at 128 µg/mL. Electron microscopy revealed fragmentary bacteria with changes in the physical and morphological properties. Our study demonstrates the potential of the extract for further development into a bio-control agent in food to prevent the incidence of L. monocytogenes contamination.


82 Current Psychiatry July 2009 Psychogenic polydipsia (PPD) is a chronic, relapsing, and potentially life-threatening disorder characterized by compulsive consumption of large quantities of water resulting in "delutional hyponatremia." PPD occurs in 6% to 20% of psychiatric patients, most often with schizophrenia.1 In most patients with PPD, an electrolyte disturbance remains asymptomatic. However, superimposed and sudden ingestion of 3 to 4 liters of water can rapidly further dilute plasma and overwhelm the body's compensatory reserves, leading to brain edema, seizures, coma, and even death. The following prevention and treatment strategies might reduce morbidity and mortality in hospitalized patients diagnosed with PPD and lessen the cost of treating this serious illness. Develop rapport. Understand that your patient has little control over his or her compulsive water intake. Remain nonjudgmental to help gain your patient's trust. Inquire about underlying psychiatric symptoms that might contribute to PPD. Does your patient have an overwhelming anxiety, delusional belief, or both? Effectively targeting specifi c symptoms will improve your chances of success. Encourage communication among treatment team members. PPD patients are notoriously creative in sneaking water from unexpected places such as toilets and shower rooms. Staff vigilance is required to detect and prevent such clandestine behaviors. Consult with an internist when necessary, especially if your patient has a comorbid cardiac condition that requires a low-sodium diet and/or diuretics. Review psychotropic medications. In case reports of schizophrenia patients with PPD, switching from a typical to an atypical antipsychotic has shown effi cacy in treating PPD.2 Restricting fl uids to 2 to 3 liters a day combined with "a token economy"—a method of positive reinforcement to increase desired behavior—has been used to successfully treat the disorder.2 Monitor adherence by weighing patients twice a day and checking serum sodium levels frequently. Normal water retention is cyclic and peaks in the early afternoon; therefore, early-morning screening for hyponatremia may not accurately refl ect the severity of water abuse. A diurnal weight gain of ≥0.6% is unusual and might point to PPD.2 Consider administering an angiotensinconverting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor. In clinical trials 60% of patients taking ACE inhibitors show decreased water consumption.2 Order 24-hour, 1-to-1 observation if you suspect continuous water abuse. Think about placing a patient with severe PPD in a locked unit in a long-term psychiatric institution, away from all water sources.


1.1 These test methods cover the laboratory measurement of the linear (one-dimensional) thermal expansion of rocks using a dilatometer. 1.2 These test methods are applicable between temperatures of 25°C to 300°C. Both bench top and confined measurement techniques are presented. Rocks of varying moisture content can be tested. 1.3 For satisfactory results in conformance with these test methods, the principles governing the size, construction, and use of the apparatus described in these methods should be followed. If the results are to be reported as having been obtained by this method, then all pertinent requirements prescribed in this method shall be met. 1.4 These test methods do not establish details of construction and procedure to cover all test situations that might offer difficulties to a person without technical knowledge concerning the theory of heat flow, temperature measurement, and general testing practices. Standardization of these test methods does not reduce the need for such technical knowledge. It is recognized also that it would be unwise, because of the standardization of this method, to resist in any way the further development of improved or new methods or procedures by research workers. 1.5 This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard to establish appropriate safety and health practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use.


Abstract Anxiety disorders are associated with abnormalities in amygdala function and prefrontal cortex–amygdala connectivity. The majority of functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have examined mean group differences in amygdala activation or connectivity in children and adolescents with anxiety disorders relative to controls, but emerging evidence suggests that abnormalities in amygdala function are dependent on the timing of the task and may vary across the course of a scanning session. The goal of the present study was to extend our knowledge of the dynamics of amygdala dysfunction by examining whether changes in amygdala activation and connectivity over scanning differ in pediatric anxiety disorder patients relative to typically developing controls during an emotion processing task. Examining changes in activation over time allows for a comparison of how brain function differs during initial exposure to novel stimuli versus more prolonged exposure. Participants included 34 anxiety disorder patients and 19 controls 7 to 19 years old. Participants performed an emotional face-matching task during functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning, and the task was divided into thirds in order to examine change in activation over time. Results demonstrated that patients exhibited an abnormal pattern of amygdala activation characterized by an initially heightened amygdala response relative to controls at the beginning of scanning, followed by significant decreases in activation over time. In addition, controls evidenced greater context-modulated prefrontal cortex–amygdala connectivity during the beginning of scanning relative to patients. These results indicate that differences in emotion processing between the groups vary from initial exposure to novel stimuli relative to more prolonged exposure. Implications are discussed regarding how this pattern of neural activation may relate to altered early-occurring or anticipatory emotion-regulation strategies and maladaptive later-occurring strategies in children and adolescents with anxiety disorders.


Ancient cities as documented by archaeologists and historians have considerable relevance for a broader understanding of modern cities and general processes of urbanization. This article reviews three themes that illustrate such relevance: sprawl, squatter settlements and urban sustainability. Archaeology's potential for illuminating these and other topics, however, remains largely unrealized because we have failed to develop the concepts and methods required to analyse such processes in the past. The following aspects are examined for each of the three themes: the modern situation, the potential insights that archaeology could contribute, and what archaeologists would need to do to produce those insights. The author then discusses some of the benefits that would accrue from increased communication between archaeologists and other scholars of urbanism.


In this paper, we analyze a projection-based variational multiscale (VMS) method for the optimal control problems governed by the convection-diffusion-reaction equations. We derive the first-order optimality conditions by the \emph{optimize-then-discretize} method. After expressing the discrete optimal control problem, we obtain the stability properties of state and adjoint variables. We also prove that the error in each variable is optimal. Through numerical examples, we show the efficiency of the stabilization for the solutions of the control, state, and adjoint variables.


Marinc L. S. 2019. Invasive species along road segments and recommendations for remediation. 32 pp. This literature review specifically looks at roads segments as facilitators for nonnative invasive plant species. There are three types of roads presented throughout this paper; primary regionally paved roads; secondary local roads; and tertiary unpaved offroad segments. The goal is to review and recognize any predictable patterns of spread along these three types of roads, so that appropriate restoration efforts can be implemented. To review such a topic, several academic articles all containing a focus on invasive plant species along road corridors were gathered and organised into groups based on the type of road that was mentioned in the article. All the data covering species richness was organized into a table and analysed. Ultimately the results displayed that primary roads were the least successful at facilitating spread for invasive plant species and tertiary roads were most successful. Many variables like soil quality, temperature, traffic, etc. can provide explanation to why species richness is more abundant on tertiary roads than primary roads. Based on the compiled explanations from an array of literature, an appropriate conservation management technique such as leaving cuttings on site, cutting/ pulling invasive plants at a certain time as well as introducing wash stations on suitable site. This will encourage the reduction of unwanted invasion and ensure the efficiency of conservation practises.


This paper discusses the centers of origin and diversity for bread wheat; sketches historical patterns in the sources and use of wheat genetic resources in modern plant breeding; identifies and compares indicators of genetic diversity used by social and biological scientists; reviews the relationship of wheat genetic diversity to yield stability and vulnerability to disease; develops a profile of the structure of genetic variation in wheat in the developing world today; and investigates how scientific plant breeding has influenced the structure of genetic variation among the major bread wheats grown in developing countries. Modern plant breeding appears to have contributed to genetic variation in several ways. The number of different landraces in pedigrees has steadily increased over the past 30 years, and the geographical origins of the landraces have broadened. The pedigree complexity of the more successful cultivars planted in the developing world has grown over time. Yield stability, both in terms of the performance of individual lines and in terms of regional yields, on farms, appears to have increased in the past decades. The diversity that confers resistance to the wheat rusts has also increased. Diversity over space and time varies among regions of the developing world. Spatial diversity, measured as the percentage area sown to leading modern cultivars, is lowest in West Asia and highest in Mexico/Guatemala. Temporal diversity is highest in Mexico/Guatemala, lowest in North Africa, and also fairly low in South Asia. However, both spatial and temporal diversity are fairly high for many developing countries compared to some of the major industrialized producers, such as Canada. Latent diversity, calculated from pedigree analysis, is fairly high across the developing world and does not appear lower than in the major industrialized wheat producers. Genetic distance measures calculated from genealogies demonstrate the comparative diversity among the top 10 bread wheats grown in West Asia and the marked similarity of wheats grown in Mexico/Guatemala and Canada. Numerous socioeconomic factors, which future research must examine more closely, have shaped the structure of genetic variation in farmers fields. These factors are related to the adoption and diffusion of new varieties and include pricing policies for seed and associated inputs, and the structure of the seed multiplication and distribution system.


This article brings together two Indigenous scholars who have come to better know their Indigenous history as they story it alongside their work as historians and academics. We find that the historical landscape changes when family history is better understood: time and space become embodied, history becomes personal. Sami scholar May-Britt Ohman speaks of singing to the hillside in a 'Sound of Music' style, and then feeling forced to break out of song and into yoik.1 Similarly, Aboriginal Australian scholar Frances Wyld writes about her connection to land and family history, including a visit to desert Australia where she no longer saw a world of silos, but of solace. Through embodiment comes a new identity, shared and understood. As scholars understanding the power-laden binaries of colonised and coloniser, writing at the intersection of personal and public using ego-histoires, we find shared methodologies to tell stories of the self inhabiting lands of fire and ice. Applying ego-histoire, we argue for a new version of history as academic discipline: a discipline which includes the Indigenous peoples' embodied vision and experiences; a history discipline which challenges the coloniser's current Hi-Story, within which Indigenous peoples are made the other, the exotic, primitive and invisible 'vanishing race'; a history which empowers and strengthens ourselves as scholars and at the same time provides our students (Indigenous as well as non-Indigenous) with a history which takes into account Indigenous peoples visions, experiences and stories.


Quadrupole oscillation modes in stars can resonate with incident gravitational waves (GWs), and grow non-linear at the expense of GW energy. Stars near massive black hole binaries (MBHBs) can act as GW-charged batteries, discharging radiatively. Mass-loss from these stars can prompt MBHB accretion at near-Eddington rates. GW opacity is independent of amplitude, so distant resonating stars can eclipse GW sources. Absorption by the Sun of GWs from Galactic white dwarf binaries may be detectable with second-generation space-based GW detectors as a shadow within a complex diffraction pattern.


Within the natural-language research community it has long been acknowledged that the conventions and pragmatics of natural-language communication often oblige dialogue systems to consider and address the underlying purposes of queries in their responses rather than answering them literally and without further comment or elaboration. Such systems cannot simply translate their users' requests into transactions on database or expert systems, but must apply many more complex reasoning mechanisms to the task of selecting responses that are both appropriate and useful. This idea has given rise to a broadly-defined program of research in cooperative response generation (CRG).
Research in CRG carried on over more than a decade has yielded a substantial body of literature. Analysis of that literature, however, shows that investigators have focused primarily on modeling manifestations of cooperative behavior without directly considering the nature and motivations of the behavior itself. But if we want to develop natural-language dialogue systems that are truly to function as cooperative respondents instead of serving only as models of particular kinds of cooperative responses, a different approach is required.
I identify two opposing perspectives on the process of cooperative response generation: the questioner-based and the respondent-based perspectives. I argue that past research efforts have largely been questioner-based, and that this view has led to the development of theories that are incompatible and cannot be integrated. I propose the respondent-based view as an alternative, and provide evidence that taking such a perspective might allow several interesting but otherwise poorly-understood aspects of cooperative response behavior to be modeled.
The final portion of the dissertation explores the computational implications of a respondent-based perspective. I outline the architecture of a Cooperative Response Planning System, a dialogue system that raises, reasons about, and attempts to satisfy high-level cooperative goals in its responses. This architecture constitutes a first approximation to a theory of how a system might reason from the beliefs it derives from a questioner's utterances to choose a cooperative response. The processing of two sample responses in this framework is described in detail to illustrate the architecture's capabilities.


The aim of this master's thesis was to examine the lies of English-speaking politicians by determining whether relevant scientific data on deception applies to the statements they communicated on social media. Specifically, the goal was to analyse the studies on deception and see if one could make use of the data to detect deception in their messages. In addition to set format of this work, the reason for concentrating solely on messages transmitted via website such as Twitter is its popularity, availability and overall use of it among politicians. In order to analyse dishonesty, falsehood and disinformation in messages they communicate, the author first had to define deception, describe the characteristics of participants in a deceptive exchange and point out cues that signal deceptive behaviour. He compiled a summary of several studies which focused on describing the profile of deceptive behaviour and enumerated the linguistic features that characterize deceitful messages. Finally, given that the author looked into statements published on the Internet, it was also necessary to become acquainted with aspects of computer-mediated communication and the features of deception and its detection in this medium. In the following analysis the objective was to recognize those features in the selected false statements in order to discover if one can rely on language components when determining the truthfulness of a politician's proclamation, testimony or assurance. Therefore, the author presented examples of several American politicians' tweets containing different linguistic markers which, according to Interpersonal Deception Theory and several additional studies, point to deception. Namely, these are levellers, modifiers, negative emotion words, sensory words and qualifiers. Additionally, it was demonstrated that, when it comes to transmitting messages via Twitter, the rates of group references as opposed to self-references and the choice of verb tense are not reliable as indicators of deception. On the other hand, at the beginning of the section the author enumerated motion verbs as another marker which he attempted to identify in the false tweets; however, he was not able to come across any of them. Lastly, in addition to false tweets which contained no markers of deception, the author provided a handful of examples of truthful tweets, which suggest the markers can appear in truthful statements as well. Taking into account the characteristics of computer-mediated communication and a limited number of examined tweets, it can be argued that identifying the markers may be used as a method of detecting deception in statements published on Twitter. However, the method is far from being failsafe and these findings strengthen the importance of non-verbal cues, some of which, as we know, are necessarily omitted in text-based computer-mediated communication.


From "between" to "in-between". An archetype "between" mystic and architectural space - The simple preposition "between" has always fuelled the mystic and ontological imagination. In the book Tree of Life compiled by the cabalist Hayyim Vital, a prototype of this tradition is the idea of divine "contraction", the first act of God that left space for the creation of the worlds. Similar concepts can be found in the ontology of Heidegger, where one of the closest words to "being" is "between", the median line marking the difference between "entity" and "being", between "world" and "thing". For Norberg-Schulz, "between" is also the point where Heidegger and Kahn meet. It will be remembered that the latter saw the origin of all inspiration in the "hreshold between silence and ligh"'. However, even the material poetic of Kahn was informed by this archetype, as can be seen from his buildings and from the many "failed masterpieces" from which a paradigm of architectural space emerges. In the Meeting House of the Salk Institute or in the Hurva Synagogue, the space in-between becomes the primary core of meaning. Another theoretician of the in-between hypothesis is Kurokawa, whose "philosophy of symbiosis" unravels in an essentially intermediate cultural and architectural space.


Respondez! is the University of Tampa's journal for nonfiction writing and is published annually by the University of Tampa Honors Program. Students from all disciplines are encouraged to submit research papers, personal essays, and other nonfiction writings. We welcome written responses to the articles, though the authors are solely responsible for their opinions. We are also receptive to any suggestions you may have concerning publication.


Pharmacokinetic (PK) parameters are probes of tissue status that can be assessed by analysis of dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) MRI and are useful for prostate cancer (CaP) detection and grading. Traditionally, PK analysis requires knowledge of the time-resolved concentration of the contrast agent in the blood plasma, the arterial input function (AIF), which is typically estimated in an artery in the field-of-view (FOV). In cases when no suitable artery is present in the FOV, the multiple reference tissue method (MRTM) enables the estimation of PK parameters without the AIF by leveraging PK parameter values from the literature for a reference tissue in the FOV. Nevertheless, PK parameters estimated in the prostate vary significantly between patients. Consequently, population-based values obtained from the literature may introduce error into PK parameter estimation via MRTM. The objectives of this paper are two-fold. First we present a novel scheme, iterative MRTM (IMRTM), to estimate PK parameter values in the absence of the AIF without making assumptions about the PK constants associated with a reference tissue. Then, using IMRTM we investigate differences in PK constants between CaP in the peripheral zone (PZ) and CaP in the central gland (CG), as CG and PZ CaP have previously been shown to differ significantly in terms of both texture and prognosis. We apply IMRTM to 15 patients with CaP in either the CG or the PZ who were scheduled for a radical prostatectomy and a pre-operative MRI. Values for the PK parameters Ktrans and ve estimated via IMRTM average 0.29 and 0.60 for normal central gland (CG), 0.29 and 0.64 for normal peripheral zone (PZ), and 0.30 and 0.53 for CaP. It is noteworthy that PK constants estimated in PZ CaP are significantly higher than those estimated in CG CaP (p < 0:05). While both MRTM and IMRTM provide PK parameter values that are biologically feasible, IMRTM has the advantage that it invokes patient-specific information rather than relying on population-based PK constants in performing PK analysis.


The Visegrád countries (Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia) faced a sharp decline in fertility rates after the regime change in 1989. Since then, total fertility rates have largely remained below the EU average, although they have increased during the past decade. Family policies (support for the parental caregivingmodel) and the conditions of women's employment might be shaping these trends. Besides the pronatalist rhetoric, there is another reason why people might alter their fertility plans: climate change‐related worries. Our analysis in this article examines whether such concerns exist in these four countries, pointing out that the efficacy of pronatalist measures depends on the widespread adoption of such attitudes among young people of childbearing age. Pronatalist pressure is strong in the V4 countries but may be diluted by strengthening environmentalist norms. Scholarship about the relationship between climate change‐related concerns and fertility in these pronatalist countries is scarce. I examine this potential relationship by analysing respondents' ideas about the generally and personally ideal number of children using Eurobarometer data from 2011 through logistic regression analysis. The results are contradictory: Climate change concerns seem to be positively associated with a smaller ideal family size in Hungary, but only from a general perspective (i.e., not for respondents personally). A positive relationship can be found in the Czech Republic regarding climate concerns and personal ideal family size. In Slovakia, a strong negative association was observed between climate change‐related concerns and smaller general and personal ideal family sizes.


The rational and effective partition of the module has been the vital significance to the product design and manufacture. In this paper, a deficiency about the existing module partition can't satisfy customer personalized is pointed out. Therefore, a method is put forward based on the design method of axiomatic, by analyzing the correlation among the parts, combining the dynamical clustering and mathematical statistic calculation to achieve the rough-to-fine division according to the principles of module partition. Finally, the based modules and the personalized modules are determined through the choice of based parameters and personalized parameters. The basic module and personalized module are integrated on a personalized product platform base on Internet. Customer can directly involved the product design by personalized product platform. The model was explained with example of the gantry grinding machine tool.


Large carnivore behavioral responses to the cues of their competitors are rarely observed, but may mediate competition between these top predators. Playback experiments, currently limited to interactions involving group-living large carnivores, demonstrate that attending to cues indicative of the immediate presence of heterospecific competitors plays a substantial role in influencing competition among these species. Group-living species vocalize regularly to signal to one another, and competitors can readily "eavesdrop" on these acoustic cues. Solitary large carnivores also vocalize to conspecifics, but much less frequently, reducing the ease with which heterospecific competitors can eavesdrop. Eavesdropping could nonetheless play a substantive role in mediating competition among solitary large carnivores if the benefits of responding to the acoustic cues of heterospecific competitors (reducing risk or locating resources) are sufficiently large. Behavioral interactions between solitary large carnivore species are almost never observed, and there have been no experimental tests of their reactions to cues indicative of the immediate presence of other solitary large carnivores. We used an automated playback system to test the responses of a solitary large carnivore (black bear, Ursus americanus) to vocalizations of their similarly solitary competitor (cougar, Puma concolor), presenting both cougar and control vocalizations to free-living bears foraging along shorelines in British Columbia, Canada. Both mothers with cubs and solitary bears were significantly more likely to advance and vocalize toward cougar than control playbacks, mothers producing one or both of two distinct vocalizations and solitary bears producing just one. Cougars could either represent a potential risk to bears (particularly cubs), or a source of resources, as bears are known to regularly scavenge cougar kills. Our results are consistent with bears eavesdropping on cougars for both these reasons. As with group-living species, eavesdropping may be common among solitary large carnivores, and may be an important driver of competition between these species.


The drive to own the natural world in twentieth-century America seems virtually limitless. Signs of this national penchant for possessing nature are everywhere - from suburban picket fences to elaborate schemes to own underground water, clouds, even the ocean floor. Yet, as Theodore Steinberg demonstrates in this compelling, witty look at Americans' attempts to master the environment, nature continually turns these efforts into folly. In a rich, narrative style recalling the work of John McPhee, Steinberg tours America to explore some of the more unusual dilemmas that have arisen in our struggle to possess nature.Beginning along the Missouri River, Steinberg recounts the battle for three thousand acres of land the river carved from a Nebraska Indian reservation and deposited in Iowa. Then he travels to Louisiana, where an army of lawyers butted heads over whether Six Mile Lake was actually a lake or a stream. He continues to Arizona to investigate who owned the underground, then to Pennsylvania's Blue Ridge Mountains to see who claimed the clouds. He ends in crowded New York City with Donald Trump's struggle for air rights. Americans' obsession with owning nature was immortalized by Mark Twain in the tale of "Slide Mountain", where a landslide-prone Nevada peak turned the American dream of real estate into dust. In relating these modern-day "Slide Mountain" stories, Steinberg illuminates what it means to live in a culture of property where everything must have an owner.


Despite the recognized role of wild waterfowl in the potential dispersal and transmission of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus, little is known about how infection affects these birds. This lack of information limits our ability to estimate viral spread in the event of an HPAI outbreak, thereby limiting our abilities to estimate and communicate risk. Here we present telemetry data from a wild Lesser Scaup (Aythya affinis), captured during a separate ecology study in the Chesapeake Bay, Maryland. This bird tested positive for infection with clade 18.104.22.168 HPAI virus of the A/goose/Guangdong/1/1996 (Gs/GD) H5N1 lineage (results received post-release) during the 2021-22 ongoing outbreaks in North America. While the infected bird was somewhat lighter than other adult males surgically implanted with transmitters (790g, ߂ = 868g, n = 11), it showed no clinical signs of infection at capture, during surgery, nor upon release. The bird died 3d later, pathology undetermined as the specimen was not able to be recovered. Analysis of movement data within the 3d window showed that the infected individual's maximum and average hourly movements (3894.3m, 428.8m respectively) were noticeably lower than noninfected conspecifics tagged and released the same day (߂ = 21594.5m, ߂ = 1097.9m, respectively; n = 4). We identified four instances where the infected bird had close contact (fixes located within 25m and 15 min) with another marked bird during this time. Collectively, these data suggest that the HPAI positive bird observed in this study may have been shedding virus for some period prior to death, with opportunities for direct bird to bird or environmental transmission. Although limited by low sample size and proximity to the time of tagging, we hope that these data will provide useful information as managers continue to respond to this ongoing outbreak event. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


Critical management studies scholars occupy a tenuous position in business schools. Their location and intellectual trajectory needs to be understood in the political context of the historical defeat of the Left since its highpoint in 1968. One of the tributaries of critical management studies is labor process theory, which derives from Braverman's (1974) classic critique of the degradation of labor in capitalist work organization. Whereas Braverman attempted to restore confidence in the potential of the working class to fulfill its Marxist destiny to lead a revolutionary transformation of society, any such confidence in the second coming of communism has long since evaporated from critical management studies. Instead of adhering to Marx's or Braverman's historical visions critical management studies scholars have increasingly turned to Foucault or critical theorists such as Adorno or Marcuse, who provide the basis for a deconstruction of Marxian eschatology. This is presented as an intellectual progression in critical management studies, but we argue that it is a manifestation of the defeat of the Left and the need to temper our radicalism in the context of neo-liberal hegemony.


A 30-month legal battle pitting China's self-proclaimed "King of the Rat Killers" against a group of scientists who said his commercial rat poison was a dangerous fraud has been resolved in favor of the scientists. It's an unusual case in China, where laws governing product safety are ill-enforced and there are no such things as "expert witnesses." Qiu Mantan, who is not a doctor but who does purvey "Dr. Qiu's Rat-Luring Potion," initially won a slander verdict in August 1992 against five Chinese scientists who "damaged his reputation" when they published an article charging that his nationally marketed product contained dangerous, prohibited ingredients. Instead of paying the 8000 yuan ($975) fine as ordered, the scientists appealed the verdict, arguing that their charges were based on a rigorous scien-


Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium tuberculosis are successful intracellular pathogens which downregulate host immune responses. T‐cell interferon‐γ (IFNγ) and macrophage tumour necrosis factor‐α (TNFα) activate chemokines such as, C‐C chemokine ligand‐2 (CCL2) and CCL5, which play a role in granuloma formation. Lepromatous leprosy is characterized by defective granulomas with lowered T‐cell‐ and macrophage‐mediated responses. Tuberculosis (TB) can be localized to the lung, whereby discreet granulomas are formed. The role of chemokines in leprosy infections is as yet unclear. We compared chemokine responses in lepromatous leprosy and pulmonary tuberculosis patients. Circulating serum CCL2 was raised while CCL5 was lowered in leprosy, as compared with TB patients and healthy controls. However, both Mycobacterium bovis BCG‐ (P = 0.08) and M. leprae‐induced (P = 0.05) CCL2 secretion was reduced in leprosy. In leprosy, BCG induced greater CCL2 (P = 0.01), TNFα (P = 0.02) and somewhat greater CCL5 (P = 0.08) than M. leprae, while CXCL8 induction was comparable. Overall levels of Mycobacterium‐induced CCL2, TNFα and CXCL8 were two to threefold lower, and CCL5 was 10‐fold lower in leprosy as compared with TB. Reduced inducible CCL2 combined with a lowered TNFα response in lepromatous leprosy may contribute to the unrestricted growth and dissemination of mycobacteria found in the disease.


Modern monument conservation aims to foster the public's perception of cultural heritage. To support this aim, we developed a mobile, location-aware information system that draws the visitor's attention to historic sites of interest and provides location-dependent multimedia information. We call the system mobiDENK, which is the acronym for mobile monuments in German: "mobile Denkmaler". Essentially, the mobiDENK application runs on a personal digital assistant (PDA) with an integrated global positioning system (GPS) receiver. By locating the user and showing position and path on an interactive map, mobiDENK offers visual navigation support. As the user casually tours an area, mobiDENK provides location-based multimedia information about points of interest (POIs) along the way, such as monuments and significant historical sites. MobiDENK is one application of the highly modular, flexible Niccimon system architecture that we developed for rapid mobile application development. The project's aim is to provide the public with mobile, location-based multimedia information about significant cultural sites in Lower Saxony.


Environmental cohesion (as a new EU paradigm for a place-based interpretation of environmental justice) has a clear connection to territorial cohesion. Based on this idea, advantages for people can include an equitable distribution of environmental protection and access to environmental services. In non-EU countries regional environmental cohesion is used as an instrument to accelerate accession to the EU and it may be manifested as a declaration of environmental diplomacy. Environmental cohesion across a border can be identified as soon as two regions – alongside the border – start to cooperate in order to improve environmental conditions and to ensure equal access to natural resources and environmental services. After a literature review environmental cohesion is evaluated in multidimensional way, using empirical quantitative and qualitative data and a two-pillar based methodological approach. The Croatian-Hungarian border area was closed for a long time. As a result, developments avoided the area, on the other, natural resources remained mainly untouched. However, the two countries have had different approaches towards the area, while, Croatia made efforts to build another water power plant, Hungary intended to preserve and extend a Natural Park. This contradiction remained until the accession process of Croatia. Finally the disagreement between the two countries was moderated by a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve that was created alongside the border in 2015. The post-2010 period has been characterised by an increasing number of environmental-related cooperations.


The balance between comprehensively analyzing the proteome and using valuable mass spectrometry time is a genuine challenge in the field of proteomics. Multidimensional fractionation strategies have significantly increased proteome coverage, but often at the cost of increased mass analysis time, despite advances in mass spectrometer acquisition rates. Recently, the Evosep One liquid chromatography system was shown to analyze peptide samples in a high throughput manner without sacrificing in depth proteomics coverage. We demonstrate incorporation of Evosep One technology into our multiplexing workflow for quantitative analysis of tandem mass tag (TMT)-labeled non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) patient-derived xenografts (PDXs). Using a 30 samples per day Evosep workflow, >12,000 proteins were identified in 48 hours of mass spectrometry time, which is comparable to the number of proteins identified by our conventional concatenated EASY-nLC workflow in 67.5 hours. Shorter Evosep gradient lengths reduced the number of protein identifications by 10%, while decreasing mass analysis time by 50%. Thus, our Evosep workflow enables quantitative analysis of multiplexed samples in less time without conceding depth of proteome coverage.


Loránt Hegedüs' oeuvre touches on a surprisingly wide spectrum of economics. Of his writings on economic policy, his drafting of consolidation in 1920 was the best-known, but he also wrote a number of works dealing with theoretical issues, and he also left his mark on the contemporary Hungarian economy as a leader or member of the management of economic and financial institutions. Hegedüs' multifaceted activities may be behind this diverse economic work, as he was an economist, politician, scientist, belletrist and publicist in one person. The study, therefore, starts from the premise that his economic activity is worth examining in a broader perspective, in connection with his other activities. Its aim is to point out the connection points between economics and his other activities. The study first examines the external conditions of Hegedüs' economic operation, namely the political and economic environment that greatly influenced the development of his career. It then presents the circumstances of Hegedüs' career choice, the individuals (family members and professors) who influenced him; in the meantime, it also points to the origins of some of his important economic ideas in connection with his studies. The study analyzes the consequences of Hegedüs' versatility on his economic work by analyzing specific examples (the issue of emigration, his economic reconstruction plan). Among other things, it concludes that not only Hegedüs' diverse activities played a decisive role in the development of his oeuvre in economics, but also that he had experience in both theory and practice, and that the latter was decisive.


In the contemporary classroom, students represent a rich mosaic of races, religions and cultural backgrounds. They come with a wealth of varied experiences, abilities, and interests. One of the greatest challenges facing teachers today is to respond to this broad spectrum of student needs. In response to this evolving phenomenon, educators and researchers have been exploring Differentiated Instruction - a pedagogical approach in which teachers proactively modify curricula, teaching methods, resources, learning activities, and student products in order to maximize the learning opportunity for students in the classroom. In an effort to address the needs of individual students, teachers may offer a variety of activities that are intended to address each of what Gardner (1993) identifies as Multiple Intelligences. In the general classroom, the choices and options often remain limited, however, for students with strength in Musical Intelligence. In addition, students who might otherwise be challenged to develop this intelligence further by such activities often miss out. The lack of musical opportunities across the curriculum is, in part, due to the naive interpretations of Musical Intelligence. Moreover, many classroom teachers do not feel that they have the knowledge, skill or time to integrate music into regular classroom experiences. This paper draws connections between theory and practice - exploring authentic processes for addressing Musical Intelligence in interdisciplinary contexts and ways in which the discipline of music can inform our experiences and understandings of the world in which we live.


The analysis and optimization of hotforming processes necessitates the use of thermal-mechanical coupled finite element simulations. One of the key issues in process simulation is the choice of an appropriate modelling approach for the tools. Splitting the process into the two fundamental partial stages forming and cooling is an efficient way to set up a simulation model. The forming stage needs the tool surface discretized with a rather fine shell mesh to meet typical geometric accuracy requirements. The quenching stage furthermore requires a 3-dimensional volume mesh to account for the heat dissipation into the tools. Model size and meshing effort both can be considerably reduced if the volume mesh is generated independently of the geometric accuracy requirements for the surface representation. Thermal contact options in LS-DYNA are then used to connect the fine surface shell mesh and the volume mesh to enable an accurate prediction of the contact situation and moreover the calculations of the 3-dimensional heat flow into the tool. A recent development is a simplified 1D-fluid flow calculation in the thermal solver to consider cooling passages in the tools. This feature enables thermal tool analysis after a sequence of several production cycles.


Introduction: There are many reasons for no effectiveness of herbicides on weeds, including the incorrect herbicide, the insufficient use of herbicide, the unprincipled sprayer, spraying at the wrong time especially adverse weather conditions, and a factor that often overlooked is the "water quality in herbicide spray tank". Most of the herbicides are mixed with water and applied as a spray. Obviously water quality is an extremely important issue. Water quality factors in this regard that effect on uptake and translocation of herbicides included as water hardness, pH, bicarbonate ion concentration, turbidity, organic matter and other substances. Hardness is determined by the amount of calcium and magnesium present and is expressed as calcium carbonate (CaCO3) equivalent in parts per million. Petroff (27) classified water based on hardness: water with a hardness 0-75 ppm is considered "soft" water, 75-150 ppm is "medium hard", 150-300 ppm is considered "hard", and more than 300 ppm is "very hard". Hard water is a problem in over 85% of the United States according to the US Geological Survey. The contrast between the herbicides and dissolved ions depend on amount and type of minerals in the spray tank. So that different herbicide may show different responses to the same action. If soft water is not available, surfactant and chemicals additives such as ammonium sulfate (AMS), ammonium nitrate (AMN) and urea- ammonium nitrate can be added to the spray tank to increase herbicide efficacy (7). These compounds prevent from the adverse effects of the ions in water. Glyphosate and nicosulfuron belong to two different chemical families of herbicides and are soluble in water. Therefore, water quality such as the presence of calcium carbonate may have a significant effect on these herbicide performances, while removing the inhibitory effect of water hardness by adding nitrogen compounds such as ammonium sulfate need to experiment. According to the above, basic experiments carried out as the influence of adding ammonium sulphate to spray solution of calcium carbonate-containing glyphosate and nicosulfuron on barnyardgrass and velvetleaf control.
Materials and Methods: Four experiments were performed as factorial arrangement of treatments 6×2 based on completely randomized design with six replications (+six control pots for each weed species) at Research Greenhouse of the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in 2010. Factors were included different concentrations of calcium carbonate (CaCO3; Merck, Germany) of water in spray tank at six levels 0, 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500 ppm in deionized water (w/v) in combination with 0 (-AMS) or 3 kg/ha (+AMS) ammonium sulphate (Merck, Germany) as adjuster the hardness. Glyphosate (Roundup®) and nicosulfuron (Cruse®) herbicides were applied post emergent at 385 and 550 mL ha-1 as commercial products (158 and 22 g ai ha-1; based on ED50 outcome preliminary test (12), recpectively) at the 3-4 leaf stage of the weeds (barnyardgrass and velvetleaf) in a spray volume of 250 L ha-1. Four weeks after treatment, survival, plant height, leaf area, and shoot dry weight of weeds (% control) were calculated. The data of experiment were subjected to ANOVA using MSTATC software. Means of the treatments were separated using Duncan's Multiple Range Test at α = 0.05. Also, based on the distribution of data, regression analysis was used as linear, two, and third-degree polynomial by EXCEL 2007.
Results and Discussion: The results showed a significant reduction (p≤0.01) for survival, plant height, leaf area, and shoot dry weight of weeds (% control) with addition of calcium carbonate in spray tank of glyphosate and nicosulfuron herbicides, but this effect was not similar. So that, 500 ppm Ca2+ to the nicosulfuron spray solution compared with its absence increased barnyardgrass and velvetleaf biomass (% control) 16 and 50%, respectively. The corresponding values for glyphosate were 78 and 51%. Accordingly, Nalewaja et al. (24) reviewed the effect of different calcium compounds such as calcium carbonate (0.02 mol) in water as a solvent nicosulfuron herbicide (15 g ai ha-1; 160 L ha-1) interaction to seven surfactants on finger grass (Digitaria sanguinalis L.) at greenhouse conditions found that CaCO3 across seven surfactants reduced about 8% nicosulfuron performance. In research conducted by Buhler and Burnside (5) concluded that an increase in calcium ion (prepared from CaCl2) to 2 mmol in spray tank was not affected on glyphosate (400 g ai ha-1; 190 L ha-1) performance. With the increasing of Ca++ to 8 mmol, was reduced significantly (P≤0.05) toxicity herbicide on oat (Avena sativa L.) from 80 to less than 20%, 14 days after spray at the greenhouse experiment. Adding ammonium sulphate (+AMS) decreased the antagonistic effects of water hardness, and increased herbicides efficacy on barnyardgrass and velvetleaf. However, the synergistic effect of +AMS on velvetleaf control by glyphosate was higher. Green and Cahill (10) concluded adding 2% AMS to spray tank increased the pH of nicosulfuron solution from 4.6 to 4.7 and finger grass was well controlled by this herbicide because of increasing nicosulfuron solubility from 12 to 16%. In research conducted by Mueller et al. (22), the presence of calcium (Ca++) and magnesium (Mg++) ions concentration of 250 ppm reduced the effectiveness of three types of glyphosate salt, but adding 2% by weight of ammonium sulfate (AMS) to the spray tank overcame to the ions antagonistic effect.
Conclusion: Results of current experiment emphasized the role of water hardness (CaCO3) in spray tank of glyphosate and nicosulfuron on barnyardgrass and velvetleaf control.


High-accuracy density measurement data are required to validate
equations of state (EOS) for use in custody transfer of natural gas through pipelines. The
AGA8-DC92 EOS, which is the current industry standard has already been validated
against a databank of natural gas mixtures with compositions containing up to 0.2 mole
percent of the heavier C6+ fraction and is expected to predict densities of natural gas
mixtures containing higher mole percentages of the C6+ fraction with the same accuracy.
With the advances in exploration, drilling and production, natural gas streams containing
higher percentages of the C6+ fraction have become available from the deepwater and
ultra-deepwater Gulf of Mexico in recent years. High-accuracy, density data for such
natural gas mixtures are required to check if the AGA8-DC92 EOS covers the entire
range of pressure, temperature and compositions encountered in custody transfer.
A state-of-the-art, high pressure, high temperature, compact single-sinker
magnetic suspension densitometer has been used to measure densities of two simulated
natural gas mixtures named M91C1 and M94C1 after validating its operation by
measuring densities of pure argon, nitrogen and methane in the range (270 to 340) K
[(26.33 to152.33) oF, (-3.15 to 66.85) oC] and (3.447 to 34.474) MPa [(500 to 5,000)
psia]. Measured densities of M91C1, not containing the C6+ fraction show larger than
expected relative deviations from the AGA8-DC92 EOS predictions in regions 1 and 2
but agree well with predictions from the recently developed REFPROP EOS, implyingthat the AGA8-DC92 EOS may be unreliable in its present state even for natural gas
mixtures not containing the C6+ fraction. Measured densities of M94C1 containing more
than 0.2 mole percent of the C6+ fraction deviate from the AGA8-DC92 EOS predictions
by more than the expected values in region 1 which is not surprising but the agreement
with AGA8-DC92 EOS predictions in region 2 is misleading which becomes evident
when the measured densities are compared to the REFPROP EOS predictions. The
measured data can be used to recalibrate the parameters of the AGA8-DC92 EOS or to
validate an entirely new EOS.


Tournament incentive schemes offer payments dependent on relative performance and are intended thereby to motivate agents to exert productive effort. Unfortunately, however, an agent may also be tempted to degrade the production of his competitors in order to improve the own relative position. We investigate whether this sabotage problem is mitigated in a repeated interaction between the agents and the principal. As sabotage can hardly be observed in real-world organizations, we employ a controlled experiment. Our data provide clear evidence that agents' behavior is not only guided by competition between agents but also by the possibility of punishing the principal via sabotage.


Aflatoxin is a human carcinogen, produced by fungus Aspergillus flavus that frequently contaminates maize. Analysis of A. flavus by plate counting and aflatoxin by Thin Layer Chromatography were performed on 104 samples and 25 samples, respectively, of maize grain and maize based food products from different places in Bogor-West Java, Boyolali-Central Java and Bojonegoro-East Java. These regions support significant number of maize production in Java. Forty percent of the samples were contaminated by A. flavus, whereas aflatoxin level of higher than 20 ppb was found in 4 of 25 samples. The highest contamination level of A. flavus was found at the collector trader that often stored the maize grain in average of 15 days, at room temperature. There was a significant correlation between the length of storage as well as relative humidity with the contamination levels of A. flavus. Significant correlation was also found between the contamination levels of A. flavus with the level of aflatoxin in maize grain. However, no significant correlation was found between the aflatoxin level and the contamination levels of A. flavus in the processed maize based food products.


This article introduces two original measurement methods (i.e. adhesive layer and pulloff edge) for the determination of the stent retention force, together with the results from these measurements. The measurement with the adhesive layer models and quantifies the stentobstruction occurring in the constrictions; meanwhile the pull-off edge method is based on modelling and quantifying the collisions and constrictions in the main catheter. For the evaluation of the measurements our research introduced the specific 'stent pull-off' force, which shows the force required for the 'pull-off' of the stent from the balloon, which is referred to as the stent unit length. This is the maximum force value shown on the retention diagram (insert diagram reference here). It is ascertainable, that the presence of the polyurethane coating and the increase of the pulling-speed are increasing the 'stent pull-off' force. During the test interval of the pull-off speed, the 'stent pull-off' force for the Chronoflex®-coated stents increased from 0.45 N/mm to 0.76 N/mm.


Abstract. Soil aquifer treatment (SAT) is a tertiary process for wastewater treatment where the wastewater infiltrates through a thick vadose zone for purification and storage in the underneath aquifer. SAT infiltration basins are typically flooded intermittently, while maintaining a fixed ratio between the wetting and the drying stages. However, infiltration basins exhibit different physical and chemical properties, limiting the generalization of SAT operation to attain optimal efficiency. Since frequent sampling of the soil pore water to verify the SAT's biodegradation efficiency can be arduous, continuous monitoring of the SAT vadose zone's physico-chemical conditions is required. In this study, redox potential (Eh) was continuously monitored, together with other variables such as water content (θ), soil temperature, and gaseous oxygen (O2), at multiple depths of a SAT vadose zone throughout the year and while the system was constrained to different operational modes. Hydrological models were calibrated and validated to water content observations, and they illustrated the seasonal changes in water infiltration. Furthermore, it was shown that under long wetting stages during winter, there was a reduction in the SAT's drainage capabilities. The Eh observations, under long wetting stages, demonstrated larger variability and very negative values as ambient temperature increased. Assembling the daily Eh observations illustrated that a wetting stage should cease after about 30 hours, once suboxic conditions are established. A drying stage's optimal duration should be 36 hours, according to the Eh and O2 observations during summer and winter. Ultimately, the study shows that the length of wetting and drying stages should be defined separately, rather than by adhering to the wetting/drying ratio.


While a model-based analysis of behavior and experience is helpful in psychological research, the lack of approaches for the integration of qualitative data may lead to limited insights about essentially rich concepts. To overcome this, the present article suggests a combination of phenomenological and model-based analysis of qualitative data. We apply this approach in the context of consumer psychology and the hedonic/utilitarian model (Hirschman & Holbrook, 1982), which emphasizes that besides what consumers can do with a product (the utilitarian), it is important how they feel and who they can be through a product (the hedonic). However, despite the inherently experiential, holistic nature of hedonic product quality, its empirical study has taken an opposite way (Alba & Williams, 2013). Most studies relied on quantitative, questionnaire-based laboratory research, often highly selective and reductive, providing limited insight into everyday manifestations of hedonic and utilitarian product attributes. Our case study [N = 9] in the domain of interactive technology provided a deeper, qualitative understanding of hedonic and utilitarian product attributes and a systematic comparison of their relevance in product experience and choice. A main finding was an asymmetry between product experience and choice: Narratives of product experiences emphasized the centrality of hedonic attributes for prolonged use, attachment, and psychological need fulfillment. In contrast, product choice reports focused on utilitarian attributes and their importance for justification. Our discussion reflects on the benefits, limitations and special characteristics of the applied approach and exemplifies these by qualifications of the hedonic/utilitarian model gained through the present methodology.


During early vertebrate development, a large number of noncoding RNAs are maternally inherited or expressed upon activation of zygotic transcription. The exact identity, expression levels, and function for most of these noncoding RNAs remain largely unknown. miRNAs (microRNAs) and piRNAs (piwi-interacting RNAs) are two classes of small noncoding RNAs that play important roles in gene regulation during early embryonic development. Here, we utilized next-generation sequencing technology to determine temporal expression patterns for both miRNAs and piRNAs during four distinct stages of early vertebrate development using zebrafish as a model system. For miRNAs, the expression patterns for 198 known miRNAs within 122 different miRNA families and eight novel miRNAs were determined. Significant sequence variation was observed at the 5' and 3'ends of miRNAs, with most extra nucleotides added at the 3' end in a nontemplate directed manner. For the miR-430 family, the addition of adenosine and uracil residues is developmentally regulated and may play a role in miRNA stability during the maternal zygotic transition. Similar modification at the 3' ends of a large number of miRNAs suggests widespread regulation of stability during early development. Beside miRNAs, we also identified a large and unexpectedly diverse set of piRNAs expressed during early development.


This article was acceptedfor publication March 28, 1998. Objective. This study sought to determine whether persons with traumatic brain injury who received outpatient occupational therapy services achieved self-identified goals related to tasks ofdaily life. Method. Sixteen participants completed the study. Occupational therapists used their usual treatment procedures to restore independence in home and community occupational functioning. The Canadian Occupational Performance Measure identified the five most important problems that interfered with independence in the roles the participant valued as well as the participant's perception ofperformance ability and satisfaction with performance. Goal Attainment Scaling documented achievement ofthe five selfidentified goals. The Independent Living Skills Evaluation (ILSE) and the Reintegration to Normal Living Scale (RNL) measured changes in overall instrumental activities ofdaily living and community reintegration. Results. The participants significantly achieved (p < .001) their goals from admission to discharge, rated themselves as performing significantly better (p < .001), and were significantly more satisfied (p = .001) with performance after treatment than before. Additionally, they improved significantly on the lLSE (p < .001) and the RNL (p < .001) from admission to discharge. There were no significant changes in performance from discharge to followup on any ofthe scales. Conclusion. Although causality cannot be inferred, it can be concluded that participants attending outpatient occupational therapy significantly improved, and improvements were sustained after discharge, but no fUrther improvement occurred spontaneously.


Italian historical buildings require urgent and costly maintenance and restoration works, but neither the local, nor the national public administrators can afford these expenditures. Nevertheless the built cultural heritage represent a unique resource of the territory, as it embodies the local social, historical, and cultural values, generates positive externalities (Musgrave, 1959), and stimulates economic activities mainly related to tourism. Is it possible to quantify how much we care about historical buildings and to measure this value in monetary terms? The aim of this paper is to answer to this question via the hedonimetric approach. Specifically, we try to verify if the proximity to historical villas, districts, palaces, squares, fortresses, religious buildings and archeological site systematically influence the house market equilibrium price in the Veneto region (Italy). The paper is organized as follows: in section two a brief review of the literature is reported, in section three the database used for the hedonimetric estimates is described, in section four the econometric models and the results we had obtained are illustrated, and in section five some final comments are drawn.


Essay Introduction Animal trainer Vicki Hearne, following poet John Hollander, described cats as "infinitely interpretable texts," and authors and artists have inscribed meaning onto cats in a variety of media for centuries (235). On the Internet, cat memes gained popularity in the mid2000s, but with this timeline we argue that their origins stretch back to at least the 18th century. Our timeline traces the evolution of cat memes from 18th century emblems through the rise of Internet popular culture. What's in a meme? "Meme" was coined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976) to describe cultural elements,"tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches," that are transmitted between individuals or groups through imitation (249). Dawkins proposed the term as an analogy between cultural transmission of ideas and values, and genetic transmission of physical traits. Dawkins's genetic analogy works reasonably well for the slow processes of culture that precede the information age. The modern concept of virality, "the tendency of ... a piece of information to be circulated rapidly and widely" (Oxford), is enabled by accelerating media-transfer technology. Social networks, micro-publishing platforms, and other online communities become the host organisms for a dizzying array of viral media. Memes proliferated in early print culture as emblems and verse mnemonics. Characterized by brevity and recognizability, the emblem and the couplet evolve into the jingle, the logo, the buzzword, the earworm. The Internet has proved particularly fertile ground for the creation and spread of memes, and cat memes in particular. These bite-sized sound-textvision-bytes are engineered to stick with you and prove to be immediately identifiable and ultimately irresistible. As our timeline demonstrates, after two centuries of cats memes in print, video, and graphic arts, computer users generated a proliferation of cat-themed memetic Internet content beginning in the early 90s.The "deceptively frivolous phenomenon" of internet cats was documented in 2015 with the How Cats Took Over the Internet show at the Museum of the Moving Image (MMI), which was sponsored by Purina and Friskies (Eppink). There are several generic forms around which this content tends to accrete, only some of which conform to the common <image + all-caps Impact font> formula. Limor Shifman has proposed nine broad "meme genres," of which LOLCats is one (110). But cat memes can occupy several of the genres Shifman identifies, including videos, gifs, and stock character macros, as can be seen from the diverse array of viral content we've curated in the timeline. Why a timeline? The interactive timeline provides both a chronological and visual mechanism for understanding the history of cat memes, mapping occurrences without necessarily implying a telos or genealogy. Our timeline was created using Timeline JS, a free, opensource tool created and maintained by Northwestern University. Originally designed for journalists, the API is in use by CNN, TIME magazine, Le Monde, and other media outlets to generate interactive content. Timeline JS draws data from a Google Drive spreadsheet that allows for simple data and text entry, HTML formatting, and the ability to embed web content directly from Twitter, YouTube, SoundCloud, and other websites. Timeline JS has a low technical bar for entry that allows users to easily and quickly generate their timelines enabling the move from content consumer to content producer. Conclusion We recognize that, in the years since the Museum of the Moving Image's How Cats Took Over the Internet show closed, the cat meme as a viral force has already become somewhat retro. "Doggo" and "pupper" memes had a brief heyday and, though we haven't done a statistical census, it seems like we're seeing a lot of otters and sloths lately. But, like the metaphoric virus that describes this mode of circulation, we're confident that felines will resurge, stronger and fluffier than ever, extending our timeline into the future. References Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Eppink, Jason, Curator. How Cats Took Over the Internet. Museum of the Moving Image. August 7–February 21, 2016 http://www.movingimage.us/exhibitions/2015/08/07/detail/how-cats-took-overthe-internet/ Accessed 2018 Hearne, Vicki. Adam's Task: Calling Animals by Name. (1982) Pleasantville, NY: Akadine Press, 2000. Shifman, Limor. Memes in Digital Culture. Cambridge & London: The MIT Press, 2014. "viral, adj.". OED Online. June 2018. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com.ezproxy.rice.edu/view/Entry/223706?redirectedFrom=viral& (accessed July 17, 2018).


Background: Some members of the Pseudallescheria (anamorph Scedosporium) have emerged as an important cause of life-threatening infections in humans. These fungi may reach the lungs and bronchial tree causing a wide range of manifestations, from colonization of airways to deep pulmonary infections. Frequently, they may also disseminate to other organs, with a predilection for the brain. In otherwise healthy patients, the infection is characterized by non-invasive type involvement, while invasive and/or disseminated infections were mostly seen in immunocompromised patients. Aims: We reviewed all the available reports on Pseudallescheria/Scedosporium pulmonary infections, focusing on the geographical distribution, immune status of infected individuals, type of infections, clinical manifestations, treatment and outcome. Results and conclusions: The main clinical manifestations of the 189 cases of pulmonary pseudallescheri-asis reviewed were pneumonia (89), followed by fungus ball (26), and chest abscess (18). Some patients had more than one type of invasive pulmonary manifestations. Among patients with pneumonia, several cases of pneumonia associated with near-drowning (10/89, 11.2%) have also been reported in immuno-competent hosts. Major underlying conditions for non-invasive pulmonary infection were preexisting lung cavities and medical immunosuppression for invasive pulmonary infection. Saprobic airway col-onization was mostly seen in patients with mucosal dysfunction, i.e. patients with cystic fibrosis. The mortality rate was closely related to the infection type, being 26.8% in non-invasive type (fungus balls) and 57.2% in invasive type.


This paper explores two of Ruth Rendell's psychological thrillers, Adam and Eve and Pinch Me (2001) and Thirteen Steps Down (2004). Within these novels ghosts and desires haunt the dark spaces of the psyche as terrible crimes are committed. Through the gloom, masculinity and fantasies of the family are called into question; uncovering deep inadequacies, lies, masquerades and appalling misconceptions. This paper examines Rendell's representation of hetero-normative masculinity and concepts of 'normality'. The desire for a banal, popular and idealized form of masculinity for Mix in Thirteen Steps Down, and the empty promises of a banal type of domestic, family bliss from Jock in Adam and Eve and Pinch Me, lead to madness and absolute violence. In both novels, misconceptions about gender roles and ideas of the trite and the conventional are the horror and produce terror, and murder. Haunted by a facade of idealized masculinity and family life, both the men and the women in these novels are deluded by its mirage. In these novels even cleanliness and orderliness in the home, rather than signifying an ideal, signal obsession and madness. It is the unconventional, the abnormal and even the filthy that signifies sanity, kindness and peace, but this is little in evidence here. In Rendell's novels it is the ideas and dreams of the ordinary, the expected, the normal and the conventional that are seen as having no place, as being both redundant and quite often violently destructive. Throughout her psychological thrillers Rendell turns the truly culturally permitted, that which supposedly makes up the very fabric of acceptable, normal society and behaviour into the liminal, the taboo and the horrifying. This paper looks at the delights and pleasures offered to the reader by these psychological thrillers. It examines the truly subversive nature of Rendell's presentation of the dreadful through and within the normal. Masculinity, the family and even the acceptability of cleanliness are all turned upside down as madness and horror ooze out of the very substance of narrow and unquestioned conceptions of conventional normality.


This study provides an assessment of the features that, operating "inside the black box", shapes the evolution of the Italian economy. In the first section the focus is placed on the functioning of the labour market at the aggregate level. The picture described suggests that the Italian labour market is characterized by high employment rates for adult males and both low participation and low employment rates for other groups of individuals (such as young, old and females) and by a large share of long-term unemployment. The rise in unemployment and its persistently high level have been blamed, both in Italy and in other European countries, on imperfections and rigidities originating mainly in the labour market. In this case, both strong employment protection regulation and rigid system of wage determination appear to have played a major role in Italy. In particular, the existence of high wage floor - either set through statutory minimum wages or by collective bargaining - has the effect of segmenting the labour force, increasing job instability and paradoxically increasing the duration of unemployment. An additional dimension of "segmentation" also characterizes the Italian labour market, notably the 30 percent's unemployment rate in the South (6 percent in the North) and the presence of a large share of the labour force employed in the underground economy. In the last section, we discuss how the decentralisation of bargaining, the introduction of higher labour market flexibility as well as the reform of social security, could reduce "insider" power in the labour market and eliminate the vicious cycle that tends to displace workers out of the "primary" sector, thus fueling the irregular economy.


Activation of the innate immune system plays a key role in the development of fatty liver disease (FLD). The complement system is a major humoral component of the innate immune response and complement C3 plays a central role, implying that C3 may be a powerful predictor or therapeutic target for FLD. However, few studies have assessed the association between C3 and FLD in a large population. Here we use a cross-sectional study to investigate the link between serum C3 levels and FLD. Participants were recruited from Tianjin Medical University's General Hospital-Health Management Centre. Serum C3 was measured using immunoturbidimetry method and FLD was diagnosed by liver ultrasonography. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to examine the association between quartiles of C3 and FLD prevalence. The overall prevalence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and alcoholic fatty liver disease (AFLD) were 37.3% and 10.1%, respectively. After adjusting for covariates, the odds ratio of having NAFLD or AFLD (only in males) in the fourth quartile of C3 compared with the first quartile was 4.13 times greater (95% confidence interval, 2.97-5.77) (trend P values < 0.0001) and 2.09 times greater (95% confidence interval, 1.08-4.18) (trend P values = 0.02). This is the first study to demonstrate that serum C3 levels are independently associated with a higher prevalence of NAFLD and AFLD (only in males) in an adult population. Further studies are needed to establish a causal link and determine the precise role of C3 in FLD.


Nucleus segmentation of fluorescence microscopy is a critical step in quantifying measurements in cell biology. Automatic and accurate nucleus segmentation has powerful applications in analyzing intrinsic characterization in nucleus morphology. However, existing methods have limited capacity to perform accurate segmentation in challenging samples, such as noisy images and clumped nuclei. In this paper, inspired by the idea of cascaded U-Net (or W-Net) and its remarkable performance improvement in medical image segmentation, we proposed a novel framework called Attention-enhanced Simplified W-Net (ASW-Net), in which a cascade-like structure with between-net connections was used. Results showed that this lightweight model could reach remarkable segmentation performance in the testing set (aggregated Jaccard index, 0.7981). In addition, our proposed framework performed better than the state-of-the-art methods in terms of segmentation performance. Moreover, we further explored the effectiveness of our designed network by visualizing the deep features from the network. Notably, our proposed framework is open-source.


Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes have been proven to perform very close to the Shannon limit with low complexity encoders and decoders. The experimental proof of existence of codes that achieve a rate 0.0045 dB from the Shannon-capacity for Binary Input Additive White Gaussian Noise Channels (BIAWGN) is a big impetus for exploring similar codes and encoding-decoding schemes for other channels. In this work, our aim is to make fundamental comparisons between the performances of LDPC codes on an Inter-Symbol Interference (ISI) channel under two competing equalization methods — the time-domain BCJR algorithm and the frequency-domain Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). Thresholds for LDPC codes with the BCJR algorithm have been derived and proved in prior work by Kavcic et al. In this paper, we study thresholds for LDPC codes over an OFDM system. We develop a rigorous density evolution method (without Gaussian approximations) to prove the existence of thresholds for LDPC codes over OFDM and evaluate the thresholds for various regular LDPC codes. We compare the OFDM thresholds with BCJR thresholds and draw some useful conclusions for code design.


Dirk Aljets II PhD Thesis ABSTRACT The aim of this research work was to develop an Acoustic Emission (AE) source location method suitable for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) of composite aircraft structures. Therefore useful key signal features and sensor configurations were identified and the proposed method was validated using both artificially generated AE as well as actual AE resulting from damage. Acoustic Emission is a phenomenon where waves are generated in stressed materials. These waves travel through the material and can be detected with suitable sensors on the surface of the structure. These stress waves are attributed to propagating damage inside the material and can be monitored while the structure is in service. This makes AE very suitable for SHM, in particular for aircraft structures. In recent years composite materials such as carbon fibre reinforced epoxy (CFRP) are increasingly being used for primary and secondary structures in aircraft. The anisotropic layup of CFRP can lead to different failure mechanisms such as delamination, matrix cracking or fibre breakage which affects the remaining life time of the structure to different extents. Accurate damage location is important for SHM systems to avoid further inspections and allows for a maintenance scheme which considers the severity of the damage, due to damage type, extent and location. This thesis presents a novel source location method which uses a small triangular AE sensor array. The method determines the origin of an AE wave by a combination of time of arrival and modal analysis. The small footprint of the array allows for a fast and easy installation in hard-to-reach areas. The possibility to locate damage outside and at a relatively far distance from the array could potentially reduce the overall number of sensors needed to monitor a structure. Important wave characteristics and wave propagation in particular in CFRP were investigated using AE simulated by an artificial source and actual damage in composite specimens.


Purpose

– Previous research indicates that deshopping is a prevalent and growing consumer behaviour. This paper sets out to examine deshopping from a consumer perspective, and to apply the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) to demonstrate how this behaviour can be managed and prevented with the help of an accompanied (de)shop. It also seeks to place deshopping within a legal and ethical context, in relation to the established literature in this field.

Design/methodology/approach

– This paper tests the TPB variables in a qualitative way by conducting in‐depth interviews with deshoppers, who had completed a quantitative questionnaire. The results further support and enhance the quantitative TPB results collected previously with 535 consumers. An accompanied (de)shop is also reviewed, as this qualitative research technique, enables an enhanced understanding and evidence of the deshopping process, which has not been demonstrated previously. The findings demonstrate support for these qualitative research tool, which enable a deeper understanding of the deshopping process and its management.

Findings

– The findings demonstrate important use of the TPB as a qualitative research technique. The model is also expanded and redesigned by adding extra variables as a result of this research. The accompanied (de)shop findings demonstrate support for this qualitative research tool, which also enables a deeper understanding of the deshopping process and its management.

Practical implications

– The research concludes with the implications of deshopping for the industry and makes recommendations regarding how to reduce deshopping, as well as recommending the qualitative research techniques to be utilised by future researchers.

Originality/value

– This is the first paper to place deshopping in a legal framework which highlights the legal loopholes in a retailer's returns policy and the implications of new directives which will influence retailers' abilities to refuse a return. This paper is also the first to explore deshopping within an ethical framework that has created new knowledge on the unethical consumer in relation to deshopping behaviour. This study also incorporates an accompanied (de)shop methodology; this form of research has never been undertaken in relation to deshopping activity and has generated completely new knowledge of what is happening when the actual behaviour is taking place.


Ring opening transesterification polymerization of lactones derived from menthone and carvomenthone was used to synthesize polyols for polyurethane film formulations. The polyols were synthesized at 140 °C using tin(II) octoate as catalyst, diethanolamine as trifunctional initiator, and with ratios of lactone : initiator of 9 : 1 or 18 : 1. Polyol structural features were deduced by comparison of NMR spectral data with those of simple model amide/esters of the initiator. Films were formulated from the renewable polyols, diphenylmethane diisocyanate [or poly(diphenylmethane diisocyanate)], and diethylene glycol. Thermal and mechanical properties of these polyurethane films were measured, demonstrating their potential utility as biobased thermosets for rigid or flexible foams.