AGN are thought to play an essential role in the evolution of galaxies. Despite this, the means by which the nuclear activity is triggered remains a matter of much debate. In this thesis, the triggering issue is addressed by investigating the properties of a sample of 20 (0.3 < z < 0.41) type II quasar host galaxies, using high-quality optical imaging and spectroscopic data obtained using Gemini GMOS-S

Evidence for galaxy interactions in the form of tidal features (tails, fans, shells), double nuclei and close pairs is presented in Chapter 3. It is found the 75 % of the sample show clear evidence of recent mergers, consistent with the rate found for a matched control sample of early-type galaxies. However, the surface brightnesses of the tidal features in the type II quasars are up to two magnitudes brighter than those of the control sample.

Major mergers also lead to intense bursts of star formation. Therefore, an analysis of the stellar populations of the type II quasar host galaxies is presented in Chapters 4 and 5. It is shown that, in 79 % of the type II quasars, spectral synthesis models require the inclusion of a young stellar component with an age < 100 Myr.

The stellar masses derived from the spectral synthesis modelling are presented in Chapter 6. It is shown that type II quasars are exclusively hosted by galaxies with stellar mass > 10^10 solar masses, and, in a minimum of 26 % of cases, major gas-rich mergers are required to form the young stellar populations.

The results presented in the thesis clearly demonstrate that the host galaxies of type II quasars are dynamic, evolving systems, with compelling evidence that the luminous AGN activity has been triggered by recent mergers in the majority of cases. They also suggest that quasar activity is triggered at around the same time as the merger-induced starbursts.


[Abstract]: The main objective of this research project was to investigate the effect of several non-dimensional parameters on the bearing capacity of shallow footings located near slopes. The geotechnical software package FLAC was used to study the effect of D/B,H/B, L/B, Soil-Structure interactions, and Small and Large Strain analysis modes. Within each of these studies further parameters relevant to each topic were also examined.

Parametric studies were carried out extensively, with the view to create practical design charts for consulting engineers. The advantage of the method presented within this
dissertation is that is it simple, yet takes into account the multi-dimensional complexities of the footing on slope problem. A positive outcome requires these topics to be studied comprehensively in order to add further weight to the argument to use this method over the traditional methods which have been developed over the past 60 years.

This dissertation proves that FLAC is a valid tool for modelling the footing on slope problem, particularly when performing parametric studies. However, care should be taken
when using FLAC as with any numerical software package, to ensure the results are correct. The results have been analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively, and have highlighted the failings of previous researchers to take into account the multi-dimensional complexity of this problem.


My project, a critical thesis titled "Finding Nemo, Finding Dory, Finding Ourselves: How and Why We Teach Our Children to Think About Disability," investigates how representations of disability within children's media transcend these texts and contribute to our society's construction of disabled subjects. By first looking at historical traits of children's literature in Grimm's Fairy Tales and The Trumpet of the Swan, I establish that the didactic function of this genre reproduces the values of the cultures in which they are written while it also attempts to instill social ideals that will guarantee 'progress.' Representations of disability in these texts teach children how to think about disability and, thus, inform how future generations will treat people with disabilities. My project culminates in an examination of the popular contemporary films Finding Nemo and Finding Dory, stories wherein all of the major characters are disabled. In these analyses, I synthesize the fields of cultural, film, literacy, and disability studies to conclude that, when children can identify disability in the films, something that is not in itself guaranteed, they do not see wholly progressive portrayals of disabled subjects; instead, these visual narratives continue to dis-able real people by promoting characterizations that teach viewers to understand disabilities as abnormalities that Other people, mark them as different, and require a cure. I argue that, in order to really overcome prejudice, we must become conscious of what our media actually teaches children about disability.


This Paper first documents the comparative productivity performance of the United States and Britain since 1870, showing the importance of developments in services. We identify the transition in market services from customized, low-volume, high margin business organized on a network basis to standardized, high-volume, low margin business with hierarchical management, as a key factor. A model of the interaction between technology, organization and economic performance is then provided, focusing on the transition from networks to hierarchies. Four general lessons are drawn: (1) developments in services must be analysed if the major changes in comparative productivity performance among nations are to be understood fully; (2) different technologies and organizational forms can co-exist efficiently; (3) technological change can cause difficulties of adjustment in technology-using sectors if it is not suited to the social capabilities of the society; (4) reversal of technological trends can lead to reversal of comparative productivity performance.


The infrastructure comprises a network core, and radio network controllers linked to the core of the network. Base stations are provided with radio interfaces and are each connected to one of the controllers. A second path is established in a transfer procedure comprising the transmission of control data from the first to a second master controller, and the suppression of the first path. The infrastructure comprises a network core, and radio network controllers linked to the core of the network. Base stations are provided with radio interfaces and are each connected to one of the controllers. Digital information is transmitted on a first communication path in circuit mode between the core of the network and the terminal, passing through a first master controller, then on a second communication path in circuit mode between the core of the network and the terminal, passing through a second master controller. The second path is established in a transfer procedure comprising the transmission of control data from the first to the second master controller, and the suppression of the first path. This control data is representative of a current value of a sequence number used to number the information, incremented at regular intervals, and a shift between this sequence number and a time reference available to the second controller.


Aggressive angiomyxoma (AAM) is a rare tumour that usually occurs in females at reproductive ages and affects pelvic region. We herein report a case of perineal AAM to conribute to the literature about pathological features and clinical outcomes of this tumour. A 36 year old female with no history of chronic diseases presented to our hospital with a nontender perineal mass. The mass was present for two years and it first appeared during pregnancy. She underwent surgery for local resection. The histology of the mass was consistent with AAM and multifocal extention into surgical margins was observed. With immunohistochemical staining the tumor was positive for desmin, CD31, CD34, ER and PR; poorly focal positive for SMA and negative for S-100. Ki67 was less than 1%. Due to surgical margin positivity she had a second operation. After the resection with clear margins, patient showed no signs of reccurence for 7 months. Resections with positive surgical margins were mostly concluded as reccurent with wide time range and reccurence rates, extended surgical resection is gold standard for management of this tumour.International Journal of Human and Health Sciences Vol. 03 No. 03 July'19. Page: 172-174


Policosanol is a well defined mixture of higher aliphatic primary alcohols isolated from sugar cane wax with cholesterol-lowering effects proven for a dose range from 5-20 mg/day in patients with type II hypercholesterolemia and dyslipidemia associated with noninsulin dependent diabetes mellitus. This randomized, double-blind study investigated the cholesterol-lowering efficacy and tolerability of policosanol 20 mg/day compared with 40 mg/day. Changes in low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol levels were predefined as the primary efficacy endpoint. Patients with type II hypercholesterolemia were enrolled in the study and instructed to continue a step I cholesterol-lowering diet for 6 weeks and those eligible to be included (89) were randomly allocated to receive under double-blind conditions placebo (n = 30), policosanol 20 mg/day (n = 29) or 40 mg/day (n = 30). After 24 weeks, policosanol at 20 and 40 mg/day significantly (p < 0.00001) lowered LDL-cholesterol by 27.4% and 28.1%, total cholesterol (p < 0.00001) by 15.6% and 17.3%, and the LDL-cholesterol/high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol ratio by 37.2% and 36.5%, respectively The ratio of total cholesterol/HDL-cholesterol was lowered by 27.1% and 27.5%, while HDL-cholesterol levels increased (p < 0.001) by 17.6% and 17.0%, respectively. Compared with baseline, policosanol 20 mg/day lowered triglycerides (p < 0.05) by 12.7%, while they were lowered (p < 0.01) by 15.6% at a dose of policosanol 40 mg/day All the above-mentioned significant differences were also different from placebo and no significant changes occurred in any lipid profile parameters in the placebo group. Based on the mean values of LDL-cholesterol levels at study completion, the mean percent reductions from baseline were 27.4% and 28.1% for the 20 and 40 mg/day groups, respectively. Thus, the effects of both policosanol doses on the main efficacy variable were practically identical. Consistent with the data obtained for LDL-cholesterol, both doses were similarly effective in changing all the other lipid profile parameters. No unexpected adverse effects were observed and there were no significant between-group differences regarding safety indicator values or reported adverse effects. In conclusion, although the tolerability profile remains excellent, according to the present results policosanol at a dose of 40 mg/day does not offer significant additional cholesterol-lowering efficacy over the 20 mg/day dose.


In this paper we consider optimal parameter estimation with a constrained packet transmission rate. Due to the limited battery power and the traffic congestion over a large sensor network, each sensor is required to discard some packets and save transmission times. We propose a packet-driven sensor scheduling policy such that the sensor transmits only the important measurements to the estimator. Unlike the existing deterministic scheduler in [1], our stochastic packet scheduling is novelly designed to maintain the computational simplicity of the resulting maximum-likelihood estimator (MLE). This results in a nice feature that the MLE is still able to be recursively computed in a closed form, and the Cramér-Rao lower bound (CRLB) can be explicitly evaluated. Moreover, an optimization problem is formulated and solved to obtain the optimal parameters of the scheduling policy under which the estimation performance is comparable to the standard MLE (with full measurements) even with a moderate transmission rate. Numerical simulations are included to show the effectiveness.


A study is made of both the manufacture and the characteristics of low-loss cladded optical fibres for use in the telecommunications network. A description is given of the evolution of the fibre drawing technology and of the development of several types of low-loss fibre. These include fibres having core materials composed of commercially available compound glasses, a specially-produced high-purity lead glass, an organic liquid and a vapour-deposited phosphosilicate glass. Attenuation figures range from 150dB/km to 1dB/km respectively. The propagation characteristics of the fibres are considered and it is shown that partial excitation of multimode step-index waveguides is both advantageous and practicable. Particular emphasis is placed on an investigation of the effect on pulse dispersion of preferential mode filtering and mode conversion. The thesis includes three new measurement techniques for the characterisation of optical fibres. The first is a method for the determination of the material dispersion in phosphosilicate glass over a wide wavelength range. Resulting from the measurement it is shown that a wavelength region exists in phosphosilicate fibres where the material dispersion is zero and the loss is small. It is suggested that operation at this wavelength would be preferable to that currently envisaged for optical communications. The second is a means for evaluating the waveguide parameters of a single-mode fibre. The method relies on observations of the far-field radiation pattern and permits the simultaneous measurement of both core diameter and refractive-index difference.


Civil commitment constitutes a significant deprivation of liberty that requires due process protection. The Supreme Court has recognized that a mentally ill person's interest in avoiding wrongful deprivation of liberty is "almost uniquely compelling." The degree of interference with personal liberty that an individual suffers when he is involuntarily hospitalized is essentially the same as the deprivation of liberty that one suffers after conviction in a criminal trial. Hence, civil commitments "present an extraordinary possibility of abuse to individual liberty."This article will first briefly examine the impact of the privatization movement on the process of psychiatric hospitalization. The article will then address state action jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, followed by an examination and comparison of district court and courts of appeals cases that have addressed the issue of whether civil commitment constitutes state action. Next, this article will analyze the issue at hand under Supreme Court state action jurisprudence in general. The article will detail why, based upon well-established Supreme Court state action jurisprudence, it almost borders on the absurd to conclude that civil commitment does not constitute state action. In so arguing, this article will not, as some authorities have done, assert that the present state action doctrine needs to be reformulated. Rather, this article accepts, as a given, the present state of Supreme Court jurisprudence. To correct the present state of the law, it is incumbent on the Supreme Court to address this issue, or the circuit courts to reevaluate this issue, and hold that private physicians who act under the authority of the state to involuntarily hospitalize a mentally ill individual engage in state action.


Background: As the pituitary gland develops, signals from the hypothalamus are necessary for pituitary induction and expansion. Little is known about the control of cues that regulate early signaling between the two structures. Ligands and receptors of the Notch signaling pathway are found in both the hypothalamus and Rathke's pouch. The downstream Notch effector gene Hes1 is required for proper pituitary formation; however, these effects could be due to the action of Hes1 in the hypothalamus, Rathke's pouch, or both. To determine the contribution of hypothalamic Notch signaling to pituitary organogenesis, we used mice with loss and gain of Notch function within the developing hypothalamus. Results: We demonstrate that loss of Notch signaling by conditional deletion of Rbpj in the hypothalamus does not affect expression of Hes1 within the posterior hypothalamus or expression of Hes5. In contrast, expression of activated Notch within the hypothalamus results in ectopic Hes5 expression and increased Hes1 expression, which is sufficient to disrupt pituitary development and postnatal expansion. Conclusions: Taken together, our results indicate that Rbpj‐dependent Notch signaling within the developing hypothalamus is not necessary for pituitary development, but persistent Notch signaling and ectopic Hes5 expression in hypothalamic progenitors affects pituitary induction and expansion. Developmental Dynamics 244:921–934, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


Objective Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a noninvasive technique that allows monitoring of regional hemoglobin oxygen saturation (rSO2) values and might have a role in the diagnosis of peripheral arterial disease. We assessed the reproducibility and inter-subject variability of rSO2 values and rSO2 limb-to-arm ratios (LARs) in lower extremities of healthy subjects. Methods The rSO2 values and rSO2 LARs were calculated in eight healthy subjects without peripheral arterial disease. The rSO2 values were measured at rest at six fixed spots at each lower limb and a reference spot at each upper arm. NIRS provided the rSO2 values without involvement of any other processing technique. After measurements were completed, rSO2 LARs were calculated by dividing the rSO2 value of a lower extremity spot by the rSO2 value of the arm. Measurements were performed twice on 1 day and repeated on 4 different days. Results Mean coefficients of variation of measurements of rSO2 values and rSO2 LARs at the same spot in the same subject were respectively less than 6% and 8% for every measurement spot over time. Coefficients of variation of measurements at the same spot between different subjects were less than 15% and 19% for every measurement spot respectively. Conclusion NIRS is an easily applicable, noninvasive tool for measurement of tissue oxygenation of lower extremities in healthy subjects. The reproducibility of rSO2 values and rSO2 LARs at the same measurement spot in the same subject is good.


Abstract:Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi's Lion of Belfort, a 11 × 22-meter sculpture made out of red sandstone, was erected at the foot of the citadel of the frontier town of Belfort in 1879. Associated versions were also exhibited at the Salon and subsequently installed at Place Denfert-Rochereau in Paris. As a nationalist monument to noble resistance (and defeat) as well as an implicit repudiation of the revolutionary spirit of the Commune, Bartholdi's sculpture took the form of the obdurately generalized symbol of the lion, which made it susceptible to unanticipated collective readings against the grain. I trace the resonances of the Lion of Belfort into the twentieth century, when the monument made a belated appearance as the protagonist in the first volume of Max Ernst's collage-novel, Une semaine de bonté (1933–34). Ernst's collage-novel proposes a retrospective reading of the collective revolutionary echoes of a counter-revolutionary monument across time. My paper asks what it means for a Third Republic monument to contend with the various political, class, and temporal boundaries of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I argue that the reappearance of these leonine forms across time and in very different contexts offers a model for examining the unfinished business of nineteenth-century revolutionary history.


The transient exposure of immature rodents to ethanol during postnatal day 7 (P7), which is comparable with the third trimester in human pregnancy, induces synaptic dysfunctions. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying these dysfunctions are still poorly understood. Although the endocannabinoid system has been shown to be an important modulator of ethanol sensitivity in adult mice, its potential role in synaptic dysfunctions in mice exposed to ethanol during early brain development is not examined. In this study, we investigated the potential role of endocannabinoids and the cannabinoid receptor type 1 (CB1R) in neonatal neurodegeneration and adult synaptic dysfunctions in mice exposed to ethanol at P7. Ethanol treatment at P7, which induces neurodegeneration, increased anandamide (AEA) but not 2-arachidonylglycerol biosynthesis and CB1R protein expression in the hippocampus and cortex, two brain areas that are important for memory formation and storage, respectively. N-Arachidonoyl phosphatidylethanolamine–phospholipase D (NAPE–PLD), glycerophosphodiesterase (GDE1), and CB1R protein expression were enhanced by transcriptional activation of the genes encoding NAPE–PLD, GDE1, and CB1R proteins, respectively. In addition, ethanol inhibited ERK1/2 and AKT phosphorylation. The blockade of CB1Rs before ethanol treatment at P7 relieved ERK1/2 but not AKT phosphorylation and prevented neurodegeneration. CB1R knock-out mice exhibited no ethanol-induced neurodegeneration and inhibition of ERK1/2 phosphorylation. The protective effects of CB1R blockade through pharmacological or genetic deletion resulted in normal adult synaptic plasticity and novel object recognition memory in mice exposed to ethanol at P7. The AEA/CB1R/pERK1/2 signaling pathway may be directly responsible for the synaptic and memory deficits associated with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.


Background: Nosocomial bloodstream infections are associated with increased hospital costs in adult and pediatric patients. Candida is an increasingly important nosocomial pathogen within intensive care nurseries. The purpose of this study was to determine the attributable cost of candidemia in neonates. Methods: This case-control study included all neonates with candidemia receiving care in hospitals in Connecticut and in Baltimore County and the city of Baltimore, MD. We identified 47 cases and 130 control patients. Multivariable linear regression was used to control for state, birth weight and mortality to determine the effect of candidemia on length of stay, cost per day and total hospital costs. Results: Candidemia was associated with a $28,000 increase in total hospital costs in multivariable analysis. This increase in total cost was the result of both an increase in costs per day and length of hospital stay. Other cost-increasing variables included in the analysis were: state of origin (Connecticut), survival and decreasing birth weight. Conclusions: This represents the first study of the adjusted costs of candidemia in neonates. In addition to high mortality, candidemia was associated with increased hospital costs. This cost analysis could be helpful in determining the financial benefits of preventing candidemia in high risk neonates.


BACKGROUND
The protective role of Mediterranean diet (MD) and the detrimental effect of smoking on colorectal cancer (CRC) have already been shown. The aim of this work was to evaluate the potential mediating effect of MD on the association between the aforementioned factor (smoking) and CRC.

METHODS
It is a case-control study. Two hundred fifty consecutive patients with CRC (63 ± 12 years, 59% males) and 250 age-sex group-matched controls, both from the area of Attica, were studied. Various socio-demographic, clinical, lifestyle (including detailed smoking habits) and dietary characteristics were measured. Adherence to the MD was evaluated using the MedDietScore (theoretical range 0-55).

RESULTS
Each unit increase in the MedDietScore was associated with 13% lower likelihood of CRC (P < 0.001). Smoking habits were associated with 2.9-fold the likelihood of CRC among participants who were away from the MD (i.e. MedDietScore < 29) and with 2.1-fold the likelihood of CRC among those who were close to the MD (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
Adherence to the MD was associated with a less detrimental association of smoking habits with CRC, suggesting indirect benefits of adherence to this dietary pattern with regards to CRC morbidity and mortality.


This paper investigates the applicability of a developed Magnetic Positioning System (MPS) as a support for a dead-reckoning inertial navigation system (DR-INS) for pedestrian applications. The integrated system combines the complementary properties of the separate systems, operating over long periods of time and in cluttered indoor areas with partial nonline-of-sight conditions. The obtained results show that the proposed approach can effectively improve the coverage area of the MPS and the operation time with bounded errors of the DR-INS. In particular, a solution that provides bounded position errors of 1–2 m over significantly long periods of time up to 45 min, in realistic indoor environments, is demonstrated. Moreover, system applicability is also shown in those scenarios where arbitrary orientations of the MPS mobile node are considered and an MPS position estimate is not available due to less than three distance measurements.


Detailed information on tree cover structure is critical for research and monitoring programs targeting African woodlands, including agroforestry parklands. High spatial resolution satellite imagery represents a potentially effective alternative to field-based surveys, but requires the development of accurate methods to automate information extraction. This study presents a method for tree crown mapping based on Geographic Object Based Image Analysis (GEOBIA) that use spectral and geometric information to detect and delineate individual tree crowns and crown clusters. The method was implemented on a WorldView-2 image acquired over the parklands of Saponé, Burkina Faso, and rigorously evaluated against field reference data. The overall detection rate was 85.4% for individual tree crowns and crown clusters, with lower accuracies in areas with high tree density and dense understory vegetation. The overall delineation error (expressed as the difference between area of delineated object and crown area measured in the field) was 45.6% for individual tree crowns and 61.5% for crown clusters. Delineation accuracies were higher for medium (35–100 m2) and large (≥100 m2) trees compared to small (<35 m2) trees. The results indicate potential of GEOBIA and WorldView-2 imagery for tree crown mapping in parkland landscapes and similar woodland areas.


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to identify how the newly emerging UK practice of "collaborative planning" (CP) for construction project delivery aligns with the advocated principles of the global last planner system (LPS) of production planning and control.

Design/methodology/approach

A mixed, qualitative, exploratory approach was adopted for the study. This entailed qualitative data through three techniques, namely: semi-structured interviews, documents analysis, and structured observation. In total, 30 in-depth interviews were conducted over a 12 month period with lean construction consultants, clients, main contractors, and subcontractors drawn from the building, highways and infrastructure and rail sector. In all, 15 projects were visited where practices were observed.

Findings

The study reveals that the current practice of CP in the UK partially aligns with the LPS principles. Where practitioners have heard of the LPS they believe it to be the same practice as CP.

Research limitations/implications

This study is limited to 30 interviews, observation of 15 projects and document analysis. The aim of the study is not to generalise the findings, however, since the study examined top construction companies and practitioners in the UK and the findings were consistent across the sample, some conclusions could be made. The study is also limited to examining the construction phase only, future studies should incorporate the design phase.

Practical implications

A clear identification of the elements of current practice compared to the components of the LPS provides a contribution to the future practice of project production planning and management in the construction industry.

Social implications

The study highlights a continuing resistance to collaboration within the industry. This resistance is subtly embedded within implemented practices even though they are based on collaborative working for their success.

Originality/value

This is among the first studies in the UK that comprehensively examines and reports the application of LPS/CP practice in construction across the major construction sectors. Future studies could build on the findings from this work to develop an approach/methodology to improve the current practice.


ð Anthropogenic activities may influence rates of microbial activity through the increased concentrations of pollutants. One relatively understudied pollutant is lithium. In addition to natural sources of lithium, lithium is also derived from a variety of manufactured goods such as pharmaceuticals and electronic devices. Thus, environmental concentrations of lithium are increasing. We studied the effect of lithium on microbial activity measured as respiration, nutrient uptake, and nitrification rates. Homogenized sediment samples were collected from the White River, in central Indiana for in vitro activity assays. Lithium treatments used in assays were representative of the range of lithium concentrations found in natural environments. We found that microbial respiration rates decreased linearly with increasing lithium concentrations. Moreover, no effect of lithium was observed on nitrate and phosphate uptake. These data indicate lithium does influence microbial activity, even at trace concentrations currently measured in natural ecosystems. Lithium contamination in freshwater ecosystems may thus threaten not only microbial communities but also higher organisms. A better understanding of lithium poisoning can lead to the informed development of ways to mitigate harmful effects of lithium in the natural environment. ð ð INTRODUCTION ð I. Importance of Microbes ð


Solar grade silicon (SoG-Si) is the key material for photovoltaic applications. In this study, the silicon grain size, concentration of HF, leaching time and leaching temperature were investigated by orthogonal methods. The results showed that the silicon grain size is the most important factor for the purification of silicon. Furthermore, the obvious removal efficiency of iron and aluminum was observed when the mannitol used as the chelated reagent in HF leaching process. Inductive coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) results indicated that the purity of the samples improved to a large extent with the chelated reagent.


ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to examine the drying characteristics of blanched and unblanched sardine during indoor and open sun drying processes. Changes in temperature and relative humidity of the air during drying were recorded. The color, peroxide value (PV), thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), free fatty acid (FFA) content, fatty acid composition, and sensory attributes of dried samples were also evaluated once a month for 5 months of storage. High drying rates were obtained in all samples at the start of drying and then decreased with increasing drying time. The highest drying rate and effective water diffusivity (Deff) were observed in blanched sardine during open sun drying. Blanching treatment slowed down the FFA progression during product storage but adversely affected the color, PV, and TBARS content as well as sensory properties. Although sardine dried for a longer time under indoor drying conditions, it attained a stable moisture ratio that was lower than in open sun-dried samples. Indoor drying produced a quality stable product with less lipid oxidation and the desired moisture content, higher polyunsaturated fatty acids and sensory properties. Blanching treatment negatively affected the fish quality and is therefore not recommended for commercial sardine drying.


We conduct an experimental analysis of bargaining under asymmetric information, where the dispute resolution mechanism can be interpreted as either a civil trial or conventional arbitration. In our treatment, we allow for credible and costless transmission of private information. Consistent with the theory, we find that plaintiffs with strong cases tend to reveal their private information to the defendant. As a result, this group of plaintiffs experiences a significant drop in their dispute rate under the treatment. We also consider a cheap‐talk treatment under which transmitted information is not credible. When cheap talk is allowed, transmitted messages are not entirely ignored, but there is no reduction in the dispute rate for plaintiffs with strong cases.


The adsorption of the hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) molecule, which is known as the common form of reactive oxygen species in living cells, was investigated theoretically over pure graphene and heteroatom- (nitrogen-, boron-, and sulfur-) and metal-atom- (silver-, gold-, copper-, palladium-, and platinum-) doped graphene surfaces using the density functional theory (DFT) method. This study involved the optimization of pure and doped graphene surfaces, adsorption of the gas molecule on top of the doped atoms and neighboring carbon atoms, and analysis of the behavior of the gas molecule over the various adsorption sites. First-principles calculations revealed that the copper-doped and silver-doped graphene surfaces are the most thermodynamically favorable surfaces for the direct formation of water molecules. Moreover, the sulfur-doped surface exhibits a superior performance among the heteroatom-doped surfaces. Additionally, the gap between the orbital energies of the system was found to have an effect on the sur...


Abstract Along with continuous increases in the globalization of market, today's business is challenged by a maturing domestic retail environment and an aging consumer market. Given this atmosphere in Korean fashion market, one of critical issues to survival for companies is a strong "brand power" with brand image (identity) and its strategic marketing Strong brands are viewed to differentiate themselves from unknown brands, resulting in favorable brand images that mirror the brand's identity. As exploratory approach, this study identifies a strategic business focus on achieving brand power and provides an insight into developing effective brand positioning and fashion marketing strategy toward global markets. By focusing on a Korean fashion brand "Bean Pole", objectives of this study are to profile the Cheil Industry in Samsung Group, define brand identity of the Bean Pole, and explore critical factors of strategic brand management. Korea's economy ranks among the top 10 in the world, and its consumers have long been familiar with Western cultures through travel abroad and mass communications. Now, the Korean fashion marketplace is characterized by two market niches; (a) primarily domestically-produced, inexpensive apparel lines and (b) high-end collections dominated by designer brands imported mostly from the U.S. and Europe. More recently, apparel retail industry has shown strong rates of growth in South Korea, increasing its attractiveness to new entrants from foreign retailers. While some retailers selling apparel are highly diverse, many retailers still retain a strong emphasis on clothing, which intensifies rivalry. Cheil Industries is an affiliate of the Samsung Group, founded in 1954, as an initiative company with force in the development of textile industry, Korea. Today, the company has established a worldwide reputation for high quality and value in the three aspects: (a) leadership of electronic material in the IT area, (b) creating high profit by business structure of chemicals, and (c) gaining competitive fashion brand power. Currently, the Cheil Industry became a leading fashion firm with dominant brand power by launching various brands in domestic as well as foreign markets. As a traditional casual brand, "Bean Pole" launched in 1989 is currently expanding to family brands with different product lines. In 2005, the company had annual sales of $950million for fashion business. "Bean Pole" is the core fashion brand of the Cheil Industries, contributing 31% ($290million) of total sales in the fashion division in 2005. Now, the Bean Pole is number 1 brand in the retail venue of casual wear and children wear. Obviously, Bean Pole plays an important role as the best brand in achieving powerful brand asset of Cheil Industries' fashion brands in Korea. This case study discusses Bean Pole from two aspects. The first thing is building brand salience. For fashion products, brand salience may be strongly related to brand image (or concept) including fashion image and style. The second thing is how to do strategic brand management. Strategic brand management involves the design and implementation of marketing programs and activities to build, measure, and manage brand equity. This study provides an insight into marketers and researchers to develop devise strategic brand management in the area of high-end fashion brand and underscore the inherent need for further, in-depth empirical research in the brand equity theory. A basic observation exemplify the brand identity of Bean Pole and its strategic brand management for sustaining strong brand equity in three aspects: brand extension, image positioning, and marketing mixes. In case of Bean Pole, success of marketing strategy for brand management heavily relies on its prestige image with high quality, establishing the brand equity. The brand equity can be leverage of brand extension entering into variety of new product categories within a same category of apparel. Especially, masstige brand positioning is critical to success of lifestyle brand extension for Bean Pole, which may have synergy effect on achieving strong brand value in both core brand and its extension. A strategic brand managing effort of Bean Pole can help companies establish brand equity. Fashion firms that are able to have a strong relationship with their customer should real a host of value, such as salient brand identity, premium brand price, and efficient marketing programs. Such understanding Bean Pole's business focus allow marketers or retailers to entry into global brand extensions.


Movement at the quadrate-articular, quadrate-squamosal, frontoparietal, and basipterygoid joints of the lizard Amphibolurus barbatus were measured from biplanar cinefluorographs taken at 60 fps while the animals were feeding on crickets. Resolution of the cinefluorographs was enhanced by placing tantulum pins into the lizard's skull at selected sites. The X, Y, and Z coordinates of the pins in each film frame were recorded using a computer assisted digitizing tablet. A computer program then calculated for each frame the angular position of the skeletal elements of each of the four joints.

The results from 29 chewing cycles show that in Amphibolurus: 1) During the opening and closing phases of most chewing cycles quadrate movement is negatively correlated with movement at the mandibular joint. Thus, as the jaws open, the quadrate rotates anteriorly tending to reduce gape and protracting the lower jaw. 2) Movement of the quadrate is independent of movement at the other intracranial joints. 3) The amount of movement at the frontoparietal joint is inconsistent with Frazzetta's ('62) model of lizard cranial kinesis. 4) In many chewing cycles, the fleshy tongue holds the prey against the upper jaws as the lower jaw is depressed. 5) During the stationary phase the quadrate tends to rotate anteriorly.

These results suggest that in Amphibolurus quadrate movement serves two functions: 1) food transport during the opening and closing phases as suggested by Robinson ('66), and 2) during the stationary phase the movement serves to increase mechanical advantage of the pterygoideus muscle as suggested by Smith ('80).


The excess nitrate in groundwater could be removed by heterotrophic denitrifying bacteria, though often limited by scarce carbon source present. Denitrification in two columns filled with walnut shell and its mixture with silica sand was studied. Both media showed high nitrate removal (>90%) with trace amounts of nitrite left over. The nitrate removal rates of two columns, 0.039±0.003, 0.029±0.003 g N L-1d-1, respectively, were zero order (r2=0.9181, 0.9998 for each column) in kinetics, which demonstrated a low C/N ratio herein. Despite of the implication that denitrification was carbon-limited, the organic matter residue in both columns, especially in pure walnut shell, were still problematic. The mixture media was suggested as potential PRB media for its satisfactory nitrate removal and relatively low COD residue; though we believed these hardly degradable organic residues require more study.


Abstract Data-hungry deep neural networks have established themselves as the de facto standard for many NLP tasks, including the traditional sequence tagging ones. Despite their state-of-the-art performance on high-resource languages, they still fall behind their statistical counterparts in low-resource scenarios. One methodology to counterattack this problem is text augmentation, that is, generating new synthetic training data points from existing data. Although NLP has recently witnessed several new textual augmentation techniques, the field still lacks a systematic performance analysis on a diverse set of languages and sequence tagging tasks. To fill this gap, we investigate three categories of text augmentation methodologies that perform changes on the syntax (e.g., cropping sub-sentences), token (e.g., random word insertion), and character (e.g., character swapping) levels. We systematically compare the methods on part-of-speech tagging, dependency parsing, and semantic role labeling for a diverse set of language families using various models, including the architectures that rely on pretrained multilingual contextualized language models such as mBERT. Augmentation most significantly improves dependency parsing, followed by part-of-speech tagging and semantic role labeling. We find the experimented techniques to be effective on morphologically rich languages in general rather than analytic languages such as Vietnamese. Our results suggest that the augmentation techniques can further improve over strong baselines based on mBERT, especially for dependency parsing. We identify the character-level methods as the most consistent performers, while synonym replacement and syntactic augmenters provide inconsistent improvements. Finally, we discuss that the results most heavily depend on the task, language pair (e.g., syntactic-level techniques mostly benefit higher-level tasks and morphologically richer languages), and model type (e.g., token-level augmentation provides significant improvements for BPE, while character-level ones give generally higher scores for char and mBERT based models).


Improving the management of multiple ecosystem services (e.g., food provision, water and air quality regulation, carbon storage, and erosion control) in agricultural landscapes is a critical challenge to improve food system sustainability. However, we currently lack spatially-resolved national-level assessments of the relationships among services in agricultural landscapes over time. This limits our ability to make decisions and predict how environmental changes or agricultural management actions will impact multiple services. How do multiple ecosystem services vary across both space and time, at regional-to-national scales? To address this question, we quantified eight indicators of four ecosystem services across 290 Canadian agricultural landscapes in 1996, 2001, and 2006. We observed consistent correlations between pairs of services across the 290 ecodistricts in each of the 3 years of our study. In particular, ecodistricts with high livestock production had low provision of most regulating services, while ecodistricts with high air quality (ammonia retention) also had high soil and water quality regulation services. However, these 'snapshot' correlations poorly predicted how pairs of services changed through time. Ecosystem service change from 1996–2001 to 2001–2006 (as measured by pairwise correlations) showed markedly different patterns than snapshot correlations. In particular, where livestock production increased between years, so did most regulating services. Ecosystem service bundles also showed similar divergent patterns. The distribution of ecosystem service "snapshot" bundles—sets of ecodistricts with similar levels of provision across multiple ecosystem services in a single year—was generally stable between 1996 and 2006; only 15% of ecodistricts changed bundle types in this time period. However, ecosystem service "change" bundles—sets of ecodistricts with similar changes in ecosystem service provision through time—were much more dynamic. Nearly 60% of ecodistricts exhibited a different set of ecosystem service changes from 2001 to 2006 compared to 1996 to 2001. Our results add to the growing evidence that relationships between services across space do not necessarily predict service change through time. Improved understanding of the spatial patterns and temporal dynamics of ecosystem services, and better understanding of underlying processes, is crucial to improve agricultural landscape management for multifunctionality and sustainability.


The effects of different amounts of rare earth Gd added into AZ61 on the microstructure and mechanical properties of magnesium alloys were studied in this paper. And it adopts T6 heat treatment. When 2% Gd has been added, the microstructure of the alloy becomes uniform. The grains are refining. Gd is prior to reacting with Al for forming Al2Gd phase with high melting point. It is in the form of dot-like and globosity along the grain boundary. And β-Mg17A112 phase is reduced and its shape is thinner. The Al2Gd phase hinders dislocation movement. It markedly improves the mechanical properties of the alloy at room temperature and high temperature.


It is well observed that the monsoon climate experiences substantial climatic changes following explosive volcanism. Likewise, previous studies show that the monsoon climate regimes, especially, the African and South Asian tropical regions, are adversely affected by El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events. Hence, studying the sensitivity of the monsoon regions to the effect of these forcing factors, that is, explosive volcanism and volcanic‐induced ENSO forcing, is essential for better understanding the driving mechanism and climate variability in these regions. Using observations and a high resolution atmospheric model, effectively at 50‐ and 25‐km grid spacing, this study shows that ENSO and tropical eruptions together weaken the upward branch of Northern Hemisphere (NH) Hadley cell, that is, Intertropical Convergence Zone. This results in a significant decrease of monsoonal precipitation, suggesting severe drought conditions over the NH tropical rain belt regions. The volcanic‐induced direct radiative cooling and associated land‐sea thermal contrast result in significant warming and drying due to the reduction of clouds over the monsoon regions in boreal summer. The posteruption ENSO circulation also results in warming and drying over NH tropical rain belt regions. This study confirms that the monsoon climate regime responds vigorously to posteruption direct radiative and indirect circulation impacts caused by volcanic‐induced ENSO forcing. Hence, quantification of magnitude and spatial pattern of these postvolcanic direct and indirect climatic responses is important for better understanding of climate variability and changes in Asian and African monsoon regions.


Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), which form a significant section in many economies, are some of the worst impacted by the Extreme Weather Events (EWEs) and are considered to be the most vulnerable section of the UK economy to the impact of extreme weather. This is of particular importance to the construction industry, as an overarching majority of construction companies are SMEs who account for the majority of employment and income generation within the industry. Whilst construction has been perceived as a sector significantly vulnerable to the impacts of EWEs, the issues with regard to resilience of construction SMEs to EWEs have only been subjected to limited in-depth academic research. This study was developed to identify the growing need for improving the resilience of construction SMEs and sought to undertake an in-depth investigation of the issues.

Positioned within a pragmatic research philosophy, case study research strategy was adopted as the overall research strategy in undertaking this investigation. A mixed method research choice consisting of an exploratory questionnaire survey of SMEs and in-depth interviews of case study SMEs were employed to investigate the research questions which arose. The findings of the exploratory questionnaire survey indicated a lack of coping strategies among the construction SMEs studied. However, the in-depth case studies revealed that construction SMEs with significant previous EWE experience have, indeed, developed various strategies to address the risk of EWEs. A theoretical framework was developed to represent the resilience of construction SMEs to EWEs, informed by the findings of the study, where resilience was seen as a collective effect of vulnerability, coping strategies and coping capacities of SMEs, characteristics of the EWE and the wider economic climate. The study provides an original contribution towards the overarching agenda of the resilience of SMEs and policy making in the area of EWE risk management.


Introduction: Computer aided lung sound analysis (CALSA) objectively manages lung sound data recorded via a digital stethoscope. Historically it has been assumed that crackles heard on auscultation are indicative of lung pathology; however, there is some limited evidence that crackles may be heard in healthy lungs. The purpose of this study was to use CALSA to confirm whether crackles are present in the healthy population. Methods: One hundred healthy participants were recruited. A digital stethoscope connected to a laptop was used to record lung sounds at seven different locations across the chest wall; participants were seated and mouth breathing at volumes slightly deeper than normal. Lung sound data were analysed by time expanded waveform analysis. Results: Crackles were identified in all participants at all locations across the chest wall. Mean initial deflection width (IDW) across all locations was 2.18±0.62ms. Mean two cycle deflection (2CD) duration (13.90±2.27ms) indicated that coarse crackles were present. A negative correlation between increasing age and increasing 2CD duration was found at all locations, however only two reached statistical significance (p Conclusions: Crackles are identifiable in the lungs of healthy individuals, when breathing open-mouthed at slightly deeper than normal volumes. Crackle parameters are not significantly related to age in a healthy population. The presence of crackles during auscultation does not necessarily indicate an underlying lung pathology, so clinicians should not make this assumption on hearing these adventitious sounds.


This paper analyses the role of communicators in innovation clusters in order to provide a new perspective on clustering dynamics. While previous research included knowledge gathering and information sharing as critical element in the cluster's successful development, communicative activities have not been analysed empirically. To address this interdisciplinary research interest, the literature review brings together the research fields cluster theories and innovation communication to make interrelations and complementation visible. To operationalize the research interest, a conceptual model has been created, suggesting an Individual Level, an Organizational Level, a Cluster Level and a Context. Based on the model 23 in-depth interviews have been conducted with key communicators of the two innovation clusters Munich and Cambridge. The findings suggest significant differences between the case studies, as Munich communicators don't agree upon a cluster identity whereas Cambridge communicators share a common understanding, influencing professional positions and practices, self-perceptions and aims, network dynamics and structures.The results contribute theoretical insight to cluster theories by revealing the communicators' influence on the creation of knowledge and network externalities and to the new research field innovation communication by discussing the communicators' capacity in terms of open innovation and dynamic capabilities. Furthermore the study provides practical implications to the currently relevant issues of cluster communication and policies addressing research and innovation.


X linked retinoschisis (XLRS) is a frequent cause of macular dystrophy in males with an estimated prevalence of between 1 in 15 000 and 1 in 30 000. The diagnosis is based on the presence of central and peripheral schisis within the inner retina and supported by electroretinography, which shows a characteristic electronegative response to a bright flash in the dark-adapted state.1

Fundus related perimetry or microperimetry is a useful tool for assessing macular function and mapping central visual fields, scotomas and fixation behaviour.2 The MP-1 microperimeter (Nidek technologies, Padua, Italy) utilises an LCD microperimeter and allows a direct correlation of macular function with pathology.

We present an observational study of nine patients (17 eyes) aged between 7.5 years and 20 years (median age 10 years) with XLRS who underwent …


The ligand specificity of rat adenohypophyseal vasopressin receptors was directly compared to that of peripheral receptors of the V1 and V2 types. For this purpose a series of 15 recently designed vasopressin antagonists was used. The affinities of these antagonists for rat adenohypophyseal membranes were deduced from the determination of the concentration-dependent inhibition of [3H]vasopressin binding. In parallel experiments the corticotropin (or anti-corticotropin)-releasing activities of the tested peptides were determined on freshly dispersed rat adenohypophyseal cells. All peptides tested which were found to be antagonists of the vasopressor and antidiuretic responses to vasopressin in vivo behaved as antagonists of vasopressin-induced corticotropin release. There was a close correlation between the relative affinities of the analogues tested for binding to adenohypophyseal membranes and their relative potencies in inhibiting vasopressin-induced corticotropin release, indicating that the detected vasopressin-binding sites are the receptors involved in the vasopressin effect on corticotropin secretion. No correlation could be demonstrated between anti-corticotropin-releasing activities and either anti-antidiuretic or antivasopressor potencies of the antagonists tested. A direct comparison of the ligand specificities of adenohypophyseal receptors on the one hand, and V1 (hepatic) and V2 (renal) receptors on the other hand, showed that most of the antagonists discriminated very efficiently between adenohypophyseal and either hepatic or renal receptors. The selectivity index reaches values as high as 260,000 for desGly(NH2)9 [1-(beta-mercapto-beta, beta-cyclopentamethylenepropionic acid), 2-D-O-ethyl-tyrosine, 4-valine] arginine vasopressin. It is concluded that adenohypophyseal receptors represent a novel type of vasopressin receptors. Based on the observation that adenohypophyseal receptors, like hepatic or vascular V1 receptors, do not appear to be coupled to adenylate cyclase, we propose that adenohypophyseal receptors could be designated as V1b receptors as opposed to the V1a receptors previously characterized on liver and blood vessels.


Two recent research papers based on a 2011 survey of physicians providing abortion in British Columbia assert that "rural abortion services are disappearing in Canada." However, what the papers contribute to an understanding of the "barriers" to abortion services in rural British Columbia is doubtful, for two reasons. First: the analytical structure proposed (the urban-rural dichotomy as defined by the authors) is inadequate. Second: the authors ignore the significance of an important variable: the nature of the facilities or institutions where abortions are performed. Concerns expressed about "access" to abortion are frequently accompanied by demands that freedom of conscience for health care workers should be suppressed. Given the weaknesses noted above, the authors would have been hard-pressed to justify such a suggestion. To their credit, they do not do so.


Abstract In order to understand the Barium abundance distribution in the Galactic disk based on Cepheids, one must first be aware of important effects of the corotation resonance, situated a little beyond the solar orbit. The thin disk of the Galaxy is divided in two regions that are separated by a barrier situated at that radius. Since the gas cannot get across that barrier, the chemical evolution is independent on the two sides of it. The barrier is caused by the opposite directions of flows of gas, on the two sides, in addition to a Cassini-like ring void of HI (caused itself by the flows). A step in the metallicity gradient developed at corotation, due to the difference in the average star formation rate on the two sides, and to this lack of communication between them. In connection with this, a proof that the spiral arms of our Galaxy are long-lived (a few billion years) is the existence of this step. When one studies the abundance gradients by means of stars which span a range of ages, like the Cepheids, one has to take into account that stars, contrary to the gas, have the possibility of crossing the corotation barrier. A few stars born on the high metallicity side are seen on the low metallicity one, and vice-versa. In the present work we re-discuss the data on Barium abundance in Cepheids as a function of Galactic radius, taking into account the scenario described above. The [Ba/H] ratio, plotted as a function of Galactic radius, apparently presents a distribution with two branches in the external region (beyond corotation). One can re-interpret the data and attribute the upper branch to the stars that were born on the high metallicity side. The lower branch, analyzed separately, indicates that the stars born beyond corotation have a rising Barium metallicity as a function of Galactic radius.


Dynamic superplasticity of aluminium alloys is considered from positions of the theory of nonequilibrium phase transitions. Evolution of the open nonequilibrium system by which temperature-rates process in materials is modelled, is investigated within the framework of worked out defining relations with attraction of thermodynamic functions of the response. It is shown, that to peak of superplasticity there corresponds a maximum of a specific thermal capacity. The entropy production in optimum thermomechanical conditions of superplasticity aspires to a minimum which corresponds to formation of qualitative ultrafine-grained structure. With use of the Focker-Plank equation mechanisms of deformation characteristic for superplasticity and boundary conditions are analyzed. It is shown, that at superplasticity the main is the mechanism grain-boundary sliding, and in metastable conditions are added diffusionary processes. Influence of the specified processes in conditions of superplasticity becomes prevailing.


This work deals with the processing parameter prediction of laser clad TiC/NiCrBSiC coatings on Ti6Al4V alloys by Finite Element Method. Temperature distribution and dilution rate were obtained. The temperature distributions were sparse and enlarged when laser power increased. With increasing of scanning velocity, the temperature distributions were compressed and lengthened at the front and at the end of the laser beam, respectively. Under laser power P=2.5 kW, scanning velocity V=5 mm/s, the calculated and experimental dilution rates are 6.25% and 8.3%, respectively. There is a good agreement between the results.


This study investigated the protective effects of melatonin against formaldehyde-induced oxidative damage and apoptosis in rat testes. A total of 21 male Wistar rats were divided into three groups. Group I was used as a control, Group II was injected every other day with formaldehyde for 1 month, whereas Group III was injected every other day with formaldehyde and melatonin for 1 month. At the end of the experimental period animals were sacrificed and the testes removed and dissected from the surrounding tissues for immunohistochemical evaluation. In addition, the levels of superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), and malondialdehyde (MDA) were determined. The levels of SOD and GSH-Px decreased significantly, whereas the level of MDA significantly increased in animals treated with formaldehyde compared with the controls. Apoptosis of spermatogenetic and Leydig cells of testicular tissues was observed. In contrast, rats with melatonin SOD and GSH-Px enzyme activity increased whereas MDA levels decreased with formaldehyde exposure along with apoptosis. In view of the present findings, it is suggested that melatonin treatment may prevent formaldehyde-induced oxidative damage and apoptosis in rat testes.


In phylogenetic analyses of nuclear ITS and chloroplast trnL DNA sequences, the mostly endemic Australian genera; Halosarcia, Pachycornia, Sclerostegia, Tecticornia, and Tegicornia of the subfamily Salicornioideae (Chenopodiaceae) together form a monophyletic group, congruent with the hypothesis that they evolved from a common ancestor. However, limited genetic differentiation evident in both nrDNA and cpDNA sequences among these taxa suggests a possible rapid radiation. Based on fossil pollen records and climatic models of other authors, it is hypothesized that the expansion of the Australian endemic Salicornioideae most likely occurred during the Late Miocene to Pliocene, when increasing aridity caused the formation of extensive salt lakes along endorheic paleodrainage channels. Moreover, Australian Sarcocornia representatives were supported as monophyletic, nested within a paraphyletic Sarcocornia clade that also comprised European Salicornia in the ITS analysis. This suggests that Sarcocornia arrived in Australia subsequent to the ancestor of the Australian endemic genera most likely via long-distance dispersal.


This article discusses trends in literary theories of trauma and how their influence can be felt in criticism of the work of W. G. Sebald. Such criticism tends to find in the disruptive interplay of verbal and pictorial discourses, typical of Sebald's work, textual aporias that reflect traumatic interruptions of the cultural remembrance of the extremes of modernity in general and the Holocaust in particular. Tracing literary criticism that focuses on Sebald's use of photographic images in Austerlitz, this article argues that such criticism veers towards treating the text as the unmediated inscription of a traumatic interruption, and suggests that, rather than finding trauma in the text, Sebald's work provokes such critical responses in order to revoke them, revealing not trauma but theoretical formulae for trauma. Sebald's work thereby frustrates attempts to experience vicariously the trauma of Holocaust victims that his novel represents.


Abstract Entrepreneurs are national assets to be motivated, cultivated, and remunerated to the greatest possible extent. During the last few decades improving entrepreneurial capacity through education has garnered much enthusiasm among academics, practitioners, and policy-makers. The level of entrepreneurial capacity in terms of an individual's feeling of being able to discover opportunities and transform them into value creating outcomes greatly influence the possibility of them being future entrepreneurs. In the preliminary investigation conducted by the researchers, it was found that the entrepreneurial capacity is noticeably low within the final year undergraduates of the faculty of Management Studies, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka (FMS, SUSL). The literature highlights the importance of studying individual's personality on entrepreneurial capacity. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to identify the impact of each big five personality trait on the entrepreneurial capacity of the undergraduates of the FMS, SUSL. Extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience are the five dimensions of big five personality traits. The research was conducted based on Positivistic research paradigm with quantitative research methodology. Further, deductive approach was applied and data was collected through a validated and a reliable questionnaire. The study sample was 137 final year undergraduates selected using the stratified random sampling technique. The data was initially analyzed using the multiple regression analysis to test the hypotheses of five personality dimensions on entrepreneurial capacity. Since all the dimensions except neuroticism were rejected from the initial model, final fitted model was developed using simple regression analysis. SPSS 21.0 software was used to analyze the data. Among all other factors, this study found that only neuroticism has a significant negative influence on entrepreneurial capacity of undergraduates. This research finding will contribute to the students, administrative staff, and academics for recognizing and mitigating the neuroticism aspect. It will assist undergraduates to become successful entrepreneurs and in turn, contribute to the growth of the country's economy and social development. Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurial Capacity, Personality Traits


Remarkable changes have occurred over the years in the domestic and international economic environment of the fruit and vegetable industry. These changes are partly driven by the North American Free Trade Agreement, nutrition policies, and development and enforcement of new food safety standards. The articles in this invited session examined the effect of these drivers and their implication on the future competitiveness of the southern fruit and vegetable industry.


While the phenomenon of the "disappearing prophet" has become a feature (indeed function) of some modern approaches to Israelite prophecy, at the same time the profile of Syro-Mesopotamian prophecy has been becoming increasingly clear, and there are now definite cognates for the basic Hebrew word for "prophet". Against this background it is argued that, though eighth century prophets like Amos and Hosea may not have been much interested in the title "prophet" (and not surprisingly, when the cognate term was used for non-Israelite prophets), they nevertheless saw themselves functioning as such. No single aspect of Israelite prophecy marks it out as distinct from its near eastern cultural equivalents; its obvious distinctiveness derives from Israel's unique perception of God.


Between June and November 2002, the atmospheric concentrations and dry deposition fluxes of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in Chonju were measured four times each over five days. The total concentration of PAHs in ambient air was 84 ng/m3, with about 90% existing in the vapor phase. Plots of log (Kp) vs. log (PLo) indicated that PAHs partitioning was not in equilibrium and the particulate characteristics did not change with seasonal variations. The PAHs fluxes to a water surface sampler (WSS) and a dry deposition plate (DDP) were about 14.15 and 1.92 μg/m2/d, respectively. The flux of the gaseous phase, acquired by subtracting the DDP from the WSS results, was about 12.23 μg/m2/d. A considerable correlation was shown between the atmospheric concentrations and deposition fluxes in the gaseous phase, but not in the particulate phase, as the fluxes of the particulate phase were dependent on the physical velocity differences of the particulates based on the particle diameter.


A fundamental study of peptide transport behavior provides information about length dependent transport and sequence structure relationships. In these highly accurate investigations of peptide electrokinetic properties and peptide conformations using a Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS)-fabricated capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) platform, we demonstrate accurate and repeatable separations of polyglutamate peptides of two different lengths (10 and 20 amino acids). We investigate this separation phenomenon as a function of electrolyte concentration and ionic composition, counter-ion radius, ionic strength and pH. We report a length-dependent counter-ion species selectivity and enhanced separation at pH much higher than the pKa of the peptides that can aid in understanding the relationship between the function of biological peptides and their microenvironments. The ability of our platform to optimize separation resolution between very similar peptides is promising for distinguishing molecular characteristics of peptides and can contribute to resolving current challenges in peptidomics.


The gas dissipation from a protoplanetary disk is one of the key processes affecting planet formation, and it is widely accepted that it happens on timescales of a few million years for disks around single stars. In recent years, several protoplanetary disks have been discovered in multiple-star systems, and despite the complex environment in which they find themselves, some of them seem to be quite old, a situation that may favor planet formation. A clear example of this is the disk around HD 98800 B, a binary in a hierarchical quadruple stellar system, which at an ∼10 Myr age seems to still be holding significant amounts of gas. Here we present a 1D+1D model to compute the vertical structure and gas evolution of circumbinary disks in hierarchical triple-star systems considering different stellar and disk parameters. We show that tidal torques due to the inner binary, together with the truncation of the disk due to the external companion, strongly reduce the viscous accretion and expansion of the disk. Even allowing viscous accretion by tidal streams, disks in these kind of environments can survive for more than 10 Myr, depending on their properties, with photoevaporation being the main gas dissipation mechanism. We particularly apply our model to the circumbinary disk around HD 98800 B and confirm that its longevity, along with the current nonexistence of a disk around the companion binary HD 98800 A, can be explained with our model and by this mechanism.


Recent literature dealing with environmental life stress and anxiety is reviewed in this article. The role of psychosocial environment in both etiological and outcome factors of anxiety is evident and has been suggested by many theories. However, few studies have been conducted to explain this relation between life stress and anxiety. Mainly, studies have concerned recent life events and early separations. The link between life event and anxiety appears non specific and complex. Others factors may be taken in account like social context and coping styles. Recent models integrate both environmental factors and biological vulnerability. In particular, there has been an increasing focus on neurobiology of stress and anxiety. Further studies are necessary to specify the disorders and concepts under study and integrating biological and psychological factors in understanding the complex relationship of stress and anxiety.


Synchronization poses a major challenge to ultra wideband (UWB) systems due to the low signal duty cycles in UWB. This study develops an effective synchronization scheme for frame-differential IR-UWB receivers to improve the synchronization speed. The proposed parallel search mechanism reduces the search region of the symbol boundaries to only a single frame duration. Moreover, only one delay element is needed in each branch, since a shared looped delay-line (SLD) is also proposed to lower the implementation complexity of the parallel search mechanism. Simulations and performance analysis show that the proposed scheme achieves a lower mean square error and a higher probability of detection than other alternatives.


In 70 patients the course of infected forms of necrotic pancreatitis was analyzed. Severity degree of the patients conditions was estimated according to APACHE II scale. Practical recommendations about management of such patients were elaborated.


Abstract Discoloration of bermudagrass often results from application of MSMA herbicide used to control southern crabgrass and other weeds. However, when products containing iron sulfate (FeSO4) are tank-mixed with MSMA, this discoloration is reduced. Experiments investigated the effect of tank-mixing organic arsenical herbicides with FeSO4 or a chelated iron source (Sprint 330) in terms of southern crabgrass control and injury to bermudagrass. Tank-mixing MSMA with FeSO4 reduced bermudagrass injury. However, southern crabgrass control was also reduced by at least 50% with the addition of ≥0.38 kg Fe2+ ha−1. Neither antagonism nor safening of bermudagrass was observed when the chelated Fe2+ source was used. Applying FeSO4 as a separate treatment 1 to 4 d before or after MSMA application did not reduce visual burmudagrass injury 1 wk after treatment. Solution pH and FeSO4 concentration controlled the extent of complexation and level of antagonism observed in the field; inorganic Fe2+ reacted with MSMA to form a complex having reduced herbicidal activity. Potentiometric and spectrophotometric investigations found that methylarsonate, the parent acid of MSMA and other organic arsenical herbicides, reacts with inorganic Fe2+ to form a stable 1:1 Fe2+-methylarsonic acid chelate having two points of metal coordination and a stability constant log10 (β) = 2.77 ± 0.04. Tank-mixing MSMA with FeSO4 to protect against bermudagrass injury negates the benefit of applying the herbicide for weed control, and therefore is not a recommendable practice for turf managers. Nomenclature: MSMA; common bermudagrass, Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers.; southern crabgrass, Digitaria sanguinalis (L.) Scop. DIGSP.


The Alps have been at the center of a long process of proto-industrial development during the entire modern era up until the late nineteenth century. For many historians, in the second half of the nineteenth century the processes of modernization and expansion of the capitalist economy associated with industrial growth disrupted the historical equilibrium, thus radically altering the relationship between mountains and plains to favor the latter.
However, this general interpretation has been critically reviewed in recent years; studies have highlighted that the various Alpine societies have given rise to historical paths that have seen the development of both local and Fordist production models.
After World War II, the historical and traditional industrialization of the Alps experienced a crisis that occurred at the same time as the most dramatic demographic decline – which was especially significant in the Western Alps.
At the dawn of the twentieth century, however, a series of experiences and phenomena began to take place, opening up to the possibility of a self-sufficient and sustainable Alpine production. In this sense, the sector of mountain agriculture is quite emblematic, as it has been at the center of the current phase of rethinking and regeneration of Alpine territories.
Architecture and production in the Alps may effectively interact through the growth of a wood industry aimed at building in the Austrian region of Vorarlberg, which is a particularly relevant issue. In mountain architecture, wood is not used to follow the tradition nor to adhere to a traditional building culture in the mountains, but because this material – as the techniques and savoir-faire needed to work with wood – is the current protagonist of the Alpine production sector.
Shifting the point of view by considering the theme of production also allows us to rethink the themes of ecological transition and climate change.


A new modified organo-bentonite using dithizone(D-O-bentonite) was used for preconcentration, separation and determination of silver(I) in natural water by flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS). The experimental conditions for effective adsorption and elution of trace levels of silver (I) were optimized with respect to different experimental parameters. The influences of some common coexisting ions were also examined. The results show that the silver ion could be adsorbed on the D-O-bentonite. The adsorbed quantitively was affected by the pH value of medium and contact time. In the medium of pH 4-8, the contact time was 15 min, and capacity of the sorbent was 19.7 mg·g-1. The silver(I) adsorbed on the sorbent could be completely eluated by using 1 mol·L-1 HNO3. The preconcentration factor is 100. The detection limit of the method for silver was 0.02 µg·L-1. The method was applied to the pre-concentration/separation of silver in the environmental water with satisfactory results.


The management of many disease processes requires that the patient learn new patterns of living. This is particularly true for individuals with chronic illnesses whose course cannot be easily modified by a specific medication or procedure. In this setting, the physician frequently must ask the patient that he "learn to live with the illness" and, in so doing, the patient must then establish new ways of dealing with the problems of daily life. The success with which the patient accomplishes this goal will depend upon many factors, one of which is simply how well he can carry out the process of learning. Since many patients appear to have difficulty in learning new patterns of behavior, it is important that the physician begin to develop a more detailed understanding of the physiologic correlates of the learning process so that he may adequately assess the importance of


HIV infection is associated with subnormal GSH levels. An increase in glutathione levels has been observed in HIV-infected adults under oral whey protein supplementation. We studied the features associated with a whey protein concentrate supplementation in children with rapidly progressive AIDS. A prospective double-blind clinical trial was carried out for 4 months with 18 vertically HIV-infected children (1.98-6.37 years), under antiretroviral therapy, who had received whey protein, maltodextrin (placebo) or none. Erythrocyte glutathione concentration, T lymphocyte counts (CD4+ and CD8+) and occurrence of associated co-infections were evaluated. Wilcoxon's and Fischer's Exact tests were used to assess differences between whey protein-supplemented and control (placebo and non-supplemented) groups. A significant median increase of 16.14 mg/dl (p = 0.018) in erythrocyte glutathione levels was observed in the whey protein-supplemented group; the TCD4/CD8 lymphocyte ratio showed a non significant increase and lower occurrence of associated co-infections was also observed. In conclusion, whey protein concentrate supplementation can stimulate glutathione synthesis and, possibly, decrease the occurrence of associated co-infections.


Please use this form to give your views about proposed changes to polling districts and places in the Dinnington Ward.


We present a new approach for performing predicate abstraction based on
symbolic decision procedures. Intuitively, a symbolic decision procedure for a
theory takes a set of predicates in the theory and symbolically executes a
decision procedure on all the subsets over the set of predicates. The result of
the symbolic decision procedure is a shared expression (represented by a
directed acyclic graph) that implicitly represents the answer to a predicate
abstraction query.
 We present symbolic decision procedures for the logic of Equality and
Uninterpreted Functions (EUF) and Difference logic (DIFF) and show that these
procedures run in pseudo-polynomial (rather than exponential) time. We then
provide a method to construct symbolic decision procedures for simple mixed
theories (including the two theories mentioned above) using an extension of the
Nelson-Oppen combination method. We present preliminary evaluation of our
Procedure on predicate abstraction benchmarks from device driver verification
in SLAM.


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Background and Hypothesis: Cerebral ischemia is the 2nd leading cause of death worldwide. The pathological hallmarks of cerebral ischemia are cell damage, degradation of the blood brain barrier (BBB), and inflammation followed by resident microglia activation, peripheral immune cell infiltration and subsequent secondary neurodegeneration. The first line therapy for ischemic stroke is the thrombolytic, tPA. However, only ten percent of patients are eligible for this treatment – primarily due to the risk of cerebral hemorrhage, secondary to BBB breakdown. Less than ten percent of individuals with acute cerebral ischemia are eligible for tPA. The objective of this study is to establish whether matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) activity, implicated in exacerbating the cerebral infarct volume seen with delayed tPA treatment, can be suppressed with Interferon-β (IFN-β) and thus extend the therapeutic window of tPA.
Experimental Design: We first investigated the therapeutic effect of IFN-β co-administered with t-PA in the mouse model of transient middle cerebral artery occlusion/reperfusion. Second, using immunoblotting technique we investigated the expression levels of MMPs in brain endothelial and microglial cells following various treatment combinations of TNFα and PGE2, t-PA, and INF-β.
 Results: First, we demonstrated that IFN-β coadministered with tPA reduces the infarct size in ischemic brains. Second, we demonstrated in microglial cells that MMP-9 expression induced by TNFα, PGE2, and tPA can be suppressed by IFN-β treatment. Our experiments to demonstrate the expression levels of MMP-3 and MMP-9 in brain endothelial cells require further optimization.
Conclusion and Potential Impact: Overall these data indicate that IFN-β treatment is a viable therapeutic candidate to suppress the deleterious effects seen in delayed tPA treatment in the setting of acute cerebral ischemia. Furthermore, our preliminary data indicate that the molecular target of IFN-β, in this setting, belong to the MMP family of proteins.


Fe/Au nanoparticles have been chemically synthesized through a reverse micelle reaction and investigated by both conventional and synchrotron-based X-ray diffraction and by magnetic and Mossbauer spectral studies. The powder X-ray diffraction patterns reveal both the presence of crystalline α-iron and gold and the absence of any crystalline iron oxides or other crystalline products. First-order reversal curves, along with the major hysteresis loops of the Fe/Au nanoparticles, have been measured as a function of time in order to investigate the evolution of their magnetic properties. The iron-57 Mossbauer spectra of both uncoated iron nanoparticles and the Fe/Au nanoparticles have been measured at 78 and 295 K and indicate that two major iron-containing components are present, namely, the expected α-iron and the unexpected amorphous Fe1-xBx alloy; several poorly crystallized ordered iron(III) oxide components as well as paramagnetic iron(II) and iron(III) components are also observed. These results indicat...


Nanocrystalline TiO(2) electrodes were studied spectroelectrochemically by observing the simultaneous relaxation of the current and absorbance after applying a voltage step. The absorbance behaved differently in two time regimes: (1) ionic polarization in the oxide electrode, in which charged ions, such as Ti(3+) sites and/or interstitial Ti(4+) sites, move in response to the applied electric field, and (2) the diffusion of Li(+) ions into the TiO(2). These two behaviors were analyzed with equivalent circuit models. Li(+) ions reduce the resistance of the TiO(2) by approximately 90%, increase the capacitance by approximately 350%, and decrease the inductance by approximately 30%. Voltage cycling produces a buildup of intercalated Li(+) ions, lessening the electrode's response to the potential step, and causing it to become a more efficient inductor. The potential distribution in the nanoparticles is described by using a dielectric model in which roughly half the applied potential is dropped across the interface with a Li(+)-ion-containing electrolyte.


ABSTRACT Beachrock is a reliable marker of the strand in ancient sediments, and also suggests the possibility of a tropical or subtropical climate at the time of deposition. Recognition of beachrock in the stratigraphic record requires evidence of preferential early cementation of a layer within a succession of sandstone beds showing independent evidence of intertidal deposition. Several such layers can be recognized within dolarenites of the Proterozoic McLeary Formation. The beachrock interpretation is strengthened by evidence of penecontemporaneous joints in the preferentially cemented layers, micritic crusts of probable algal and vadose origin on some of the layers, sharply incised microtopography shown by the upper surfaces of some layers. and local reworking of the cemented layers to for distinctive conglomerates that can be traced laterally to undisrupted source beds.


The taxonomic value of spore guttulation (lipid pattern inside of mature ascospores) studied with the light microscope from fresh but also dried collections is illustrated mainly for the two species of Hymenoscyphus extensively treated here. Also, the value of croziers at the ascus base is emphasized. The high intraspecific consistency of these characters permits rapid recognition of these species in the living state: H. menthae with multiguttulate ascospores and simple-septate asci, H. macroguttatus (= H. menthae s. auct.) with spores containing a few large oil drops and asci arising from croziers. Further valuable characteristics in the genus Hymenoscyphus concern the shape of ascospores (homo- versus heteropolar), the presence of polar setulae on them, and the vacuolar guttules in the living paraphyses. The neglect of spore guttulation due to the current dominance of herbarium studies, and also the neglect of croziers resulted in much confusion and name changes in this group of fungi. The traditional delimitation of taxa within Hymenoscyphus according to the substrate (lignicolous, herbicolous, pteridicolous) is questioned because quite a few species turned out to be highly plurivorous [...]


The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the cytotoxic anti-cancer drugs methotrexate (MTX) or 5-fluorouracil (5FU), which affect the gastrointestinal (GI) mucosa, would also affect the ability of the damaged mucosa to bind the GI commensal yeast Candida albicans. ICR conventional female mice were treated with intraperitoneal (IP) MTX (3 mg per mouse, or intravenous (IV) 5FU (200 mg kg-1 body weight). On various days post-treatment, the small intestine was removed, tissue disks prepared and exposed for 2 h to radiolabeled C. albicans. The percent adherence of the fungus to the mucosa was assayed by determining the counts per minute (c.p.m.). An increase in the in vitro adherence of C. albicans to murine GI mucosa was found posttreatment with MTX or 5FU. The maximal increase (net increase of 40-50%) was observed on days 3-4 post-treatment with MTX or 5FU, concurrently with the maximal decrease in the total number of white blood cells (WBC) and loss in spleen weight of the treated animals (indicators of cytotoxicity of these drugs). In addition, experiments to block Candida adherence with chitin soluble extract (CSE), an inhibitor used in previous studies, were also carried out. CSE inhibited the adherence of C. albicans to the damaged GI mucosa, as well as to the GI mucosa from normal untreated mice, by up to 64% approximately. Based on these results and on findings from our previous study investigating the adherence of C. albicans to GI mucosa from irradiated mice, it can be concluded that increased adherence of C. albicans to the GI mucosa may occur in patients post-anti-cancer therapy (irradiation, or chemotherapy). This observation may partially explain the high tendency of these debilitated patients to develop systemic candidosis. Further experiments to study adherence of C. albicans to gut mucosa in vivo and eventually to inhibit this adherence with CSE are currently in progress in our laboratory.


The present paper offers new knowledge of historical national accounting in Norway in several ways. Firstly, a new and novel set of annual gross domestic product series by industry are presented for the period 1830-1930. Secondly, the new estimates suggest revision of the historical national accounts published by Statistics Norway. Thirdly, this may lead to necessary revisions of both Norwegian industrial history and business cycle history.


The study was concerned with the dehydration kinetics of aroids in mechanical dryer at different drying condition such as variable air dry bulb temperature and air velocity. Fresh aroids with 3, 5 mm slice and 8 mm cube were used as raw materials for drying. The experimental results showed that drying rate constant and thickness can be expressed as power law equation. The exponent of the equation for aroids was 1.15 indicating presence of significance external mass transfer resistance. Increasing loading density gave decreased drying rate constant and when air velocity of dryer was increased, drying rate constant was also increased, as higher air velocity reduces the external resistance to mass transfer and also higher temperature gave faster drying rate. The activation energy of diffusion of water from aroids during drying as per Arrhenius equation was found to be 5.12 k cal/g-mole. The chemical compositions of fresh and dried aroids were determined and it was observed that all the constituent remained almost constant, only fat decreased slightly possibly due to oxidation. Organoleptic taste testing showed that "chapatti" prepared from aroids powder (aroids powder: wheat flour = 1:4) were adjudged to be the best by the panelists using 1-9 hedonic scale and ranked as like moderately securing score 7.3. Journal of Chemical Engineering Vol.ChE 24 2006 19-24


Development of Self-Regulated Learning Skills Within Open-Ended Computer-Based Learning Environments for Science Yang Jiang Over the past decade, open-ended computer-based learning environments have been increasingly used to facilitate students' learning of complex scientific topics. The non-linearity and openendedness of these environments create learning opportunities for students, but can also impose challenges in terms of extraneous cognitive load and greater requirements for self-regulated learning (SRL). SRL is crucial for academic success in various educational settings. This dissertation explores how self-regulatory skills develop and the role of gender in the development of SRL skills in Virtual Performance Assessments (VPA), an immersive, openended virtual environment designed to assess middle school students' science inquiry skills. Findings from three analyses combining educational data mining techniques with multilevel modeling indicated that students developed self-regulatory behaviors and strategies as they used VPA. For example, experience with VPA prepared students to adopt more efficient note-taking and note-reviewing strategies. Students who used VPA for the second time engaged in notetaking more frequently, noted a significantly higher quantity of unique information, used the control of variables strategy more frequently in note-taking, and reproduced more domainspecific declarative information in notes than students who used VPA for the first time, all of which have been found to be positively associated with science inquiry performance. Students also learned to exploit more available sources of information by applying learning strategies, in order to either solve inquiry problems, or to monitor and evaluate their solutions. Compared to the second-time users who focused primarily on answering the core inquiry question and selectively collected data, the first-time users' behaviors showed the repetition and combination of exploratory actions such as talking with non-player characters and collecting data. In addition, consistent gender differences in SRL were observed in this study. Female students were more likely to take notes than male students; they took notes and reviewed notes more frequently and recorded a higher quantity of information in notes, especially information from the research kiosk. Females were also more likely to review notes or read research pages to assist them with the problem-solving and decision-making process than their male counterparts. Possibly due to the higher quantity of information recorded by female note-takers and their tendency to review notes over males, female students' performance on science inquiry tasks improved across the course of using the two scenarios of VPA, whereas the male students' science inquiry skills did not show improvement. Results from this dissertation study provide insights into the instructional design of personalized open-ended learning environments to facilitate self-regulated learning for both male and female students.


Minimum wage in the RMG sector of Bangladesh is a debated issue, mainly due to lack of operational definition and method for calculation. This study is undertaken to come up with a definition and method for calculation of the minimum wage based on the ILO Minimum Wage Fixing Convention, 1970 (No. 131). The underlying principle of this definition is that minimum wage should be sufficient enough to meet the basic needs of workers and their families, and should provide some discretionary income. Based on the definition, the minimum wage has been estimated under three scenarios – poverty line, actual expenditure and aspirational diet. Considering the industry's capacity, the study proposed a phase-wise implementation of the minimum wage under which about 80 per cent of the proposed wage (Tk. 8,200) equivalent to Tk. 6,500 could be provided in the first phase.


Presents an algorithm for the segmentation of an image sequence into spatio-temporal regions. This algorithm combines region growing and region tracking. The proposed approach relies on the temporal coherence of the image sequence and no correspondence analysis is needed. The algorithm is applied to image sequences which have been acquired with a moving camera.<<ETX>>


This article presents an application of the adaptive control method to semi-active suspension systems in the presence of unknown disturbance and parametric uncertainty. Due to the technical difficulties such as time delay and sensor noise, the road disturbance is assumed to be unmeasured. To overcome this problem, an observer is designed to estimate the disturbance. It is considered that the road profile consists of a finite number of the sum of sinusoidal signals with unknown amplitudes, phases and frequencies. After the parametrization of the observer, the adaptive control approach is employed to attenuate the effect of the road-induced vibrations using a magnetorheological damper. It is proved that the closed-loop system is stable, despite the adverse road conditions. Finally, the performance of the controller is illustrated with a hardware-in-the-loop simulation in which the system is subjected to sinusoidal and random profile road excitations. To demonstrate the benefits of the adaptive controller, the results are presented in comparison with a conventional proportional integral derivative (PID) controller.


Sign languages commonly develop in deaf communities, that can include interpreters and friends and families of deaf people as well as people who are deaf or hard of hearing themselves. Sign language recognition is one of the most growing fields of research today. There are many new techniques that have been developed recently in these fields. here in this paper, we will propose a system for conversion of Indian sign language to text using Open CV. OpenCV designed to generate motion template images that can be used to rapidly determine where that motion occurred, how that motion occurred, and in which direction it occurred. There is also support for static gesture recognition in OpenCV which can locate hand position and define orientation (right or left) in image and create hand mask image. In this we will use image processing in which captured image will be processed which are digital in nature by the digital computer. By this we will enhance the quality of a picture so that it looks better. Our aim is to design a human computer interface system that can recognize language of the deaf and dumb accurately.


After completing her MBA in 2007, Toby Johnson, a former army pilot with the 18th Airborne Corps Rapid Deployment Force, joined PepsiCo's Leadership Development Program (LDP). For her first assignment with PepsiCo, Johnson accepted a position as a manufacturing-manager at a Frito-La y plant in Williamsport, PA. The Williamsport plant had 200 employees and 54 million pounds of production per year. The case describes how Johnson took charge of the plant, and her action plan for implementing a new set of changes. During Johnson's tenure at Williamsport, the plant was nominated as a potential site for a company-wide transformative initiative. This initiative would entail major changes in the current team structure and incentive program within Frito-Lay. Johnson needed to think carefully about this change implementation.