Sugar-lignin bio-refineries using renewable lignocellulosic carbon as an input material could be used in the future to produce a variety of value added products including fuels and specialty chemicals. The bio-refinery aims to replace a proportion of goods currently produced using fossil fuels. Lignocellulosic material has a significant sugar potential in the form of cellulose and hemicellulose and this can be accessed using enzymatic hydrolysis. The lignocellulosic feedstock used in this research was paper pulp derived from municipal solid waste (MSW) and the aim of the work was to maximise the efficiency of producing a concentrated sugar solution from the cellulose (or glucan) component of MSW using commercial enzyme preparations. Analysis of the pulp by acid hydrolysis showed a ratio of 56: 12: 27: 5 of Glucan: Hemicellulosic sugar chains other than glucan: Lignin & pseudo lignin: Ash on total solids (TS). The hydrolysis behaviour of this pulp was similar to that of other lignocellulosic substrates even though the matrix of this material is perhaps more complex. Glucan conversion could be increased by 6% if the pulp was extracted with acetone to remove solvent soluble compounds. Using the additive PEG 6000 increased conversion by 15 % over 48 hours, and allowed a 40 % reduction in the enzyme requirement. PEG also increased the centrifugal dewaterability of the substrate by up to 13%. These results were obtained in single stage batch experiments. It was found, however, that both the glucose concentration in solution and the overall glucan conversion in the substrate could be improved by using a two-stage hydrolysis strategy. Using 50 mg enzyme g-1 pulp at high total solids content >18.5% TS singlestage enzyme hydrolysis gave a maximum glucan conversion of 68%. It was found that two-stage hydrolysis could give higher conversion if sugar inhibition was removed by an intermediate fermentation step between hydrolysis stages. This, however, was not as effective as direct removal of the sugar products, including xylose, by washing of the residual pulp at pH 5. This improved the water availability and allowed reactivation of the pulp-bound enzymes. Inhibition of enzyme activity could further be alleviated by replenishment of ?-glucosidase which was shown to be removed during the wash step. The two-stage hydrolysis process developed could give an overall glucan conversion of 88%, with an average glucose concentration of 7.5 wt% in 4 days after combining the hydrolysates of the first and second stage of hydrolysis. The residual washwater from the two-stage hydrolysis with intermediate wash step process contained a dilute amount of sugar. It was found that this washwater could be used as dilution water for a new batch of hydrolysis without any detriment to conversion efficiency. Thus, to further the work above a washwater recycle strategy was applied to the two-stage hydrolysis process. Washwater at various pHs and with or without the addition of PEG 6000 was used as dilution water for a subsequent round of hydrolysis, where up to 6 rounds of 48-hour hydrolysis were completed to reach a steady stage configuration. In these strategies the enzyme dose was reduced to 30 mg C-Tec3 g-1 pulp. Use of a pH 5 or pH 9 wash resulted in an increase in conversion of up to 5% in the first-stage hydrolysis rounds, indicating that enzyme carryover was occurring. The sugar augmentation and enzyme carryover consistently resulted in glucose yields above 7.0 wt% in the first stage hydrolysate when using this lower enzyme dose. The best result achieved in this strategy was obtained when using 0.25 wt% PEG 6000 in the reaction medium and washwater. By reducing the amount of liquid in the second-stage of hydrolysis, it was found that an overall average glucan conversion of 81% could be achieved over the two hydrolysis stages with an average glucose concentration of over 8 wt% in a 4 or 5 day reaction period. This result is significant, as it meets the downstream processing requirements for bioethanol, a major bio-refinery product, and does this with a low enzyme loading. Furthermore, the waste discharge is minimised due to the high glucan conversion.


: Neuroleptic malignant syndrome is a complication that may occur during treatment with neuroleptic drugs, or after abrupt cessation of dopaminagonists. Although the condition is relatively rare, it has a high mortality of about 20% when untreated. The first symptoms can appear the first day after initiation of treatment with neuroleptic drugs. The syndrome manifests itself in the form of a tetralogy composed of extrapyramidal symptoms, a change in the level of conciousness, elevated body temperature and autonomic instability. It is also associated with secondary laboratory findings such as increased creatine kinase and leucocyte count. Treatment includes stopping the neuroleptic drugs, application of dopaminagonists, benzodiazepines and fluid replacement. If the patient, after an episode of neuroleptic malignant syndrome, has a psychotic relapse, neuroleptica can be recommended after a break of one to four weeks. Two cases are described to demonstrate the picture.


We thannk Dr Collignon for his interest to our work,1and for the opportunity he gives us to clarify some points. The major aim of our study was to determine the critical level of a simplified quantitative culture technique of catheter tips that would accurately identify clinically significant catheter-related sepsis (CRS), whether bacteremic or not. We found that a cutoff of ≥103colony-forming units (CFUs) was adequate for this purpose, yielding a sensitivity and specificity for the diagnosis of CRS, both over 85%. Dr Collignon questions the use of the positivity of the catheter tip culture as one of the criteria for the diagnosis of CRS in our study. Clinical criteria alone cannot be used in such a study population with central vein catheterization. Besides, the knowledge of a bacterial growth from the catheter is obviously necessary for the interpretation of bacteremic episodes. If one is to ascribe


The mechanism of excitation-contraction (E-C) coupling in skeletal muscle is not yet well established. Cultured mouse skeletal muscle cells have been used to study the relationships between triad formation, Ca2+ channel activities, and contractions. The ontogenesis of voltage-dependent Ca2+ channels and their localization in relation to the ability of muscle to contract and the ultrastructural organization of sarcomeres and triads have been investigated by using an electrophysiological approach together with an electron microscope study. At an early stage of development, both fast (Ifast) and slow (Islow) types of Ca2+ channels are found at the surface membrane. At later stages of development, fast Ca2+ channels remain at the surface membrane, while slow Ca2+ channels migrate to the transverse-tubule membrane. The voltage dependence of fast Ca2+ channels compared to the voltage dependence of contraction clearly shows that these Ca2+ channels have no direct role in E-C coupling. Detubulation at all stages of development has confirmed that T tubules contain essential elements for E-C coupling. However, this work also shows that Ca2+ flowing through slow Ca2+ channels situated in the T-tubular system is not important for contraction. Myotubes lacking slow Ca2+ channels or having no slow Ca2+ channel transport activity (jumps to high membrane potentials, no external Ca2+, block of Islow by Co2+) still retain contraction.


PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a normal swim practice on the scapular kinematics of swimmers with impingement syndrome and healthy swimmers.

METHODS
Twenty swimmers with no known shoulder pathology and 20 swimmers with shoulder impingement syndrome participated in this study. Shoulder strength measurements were made with a hand-held dynamometer. Static scapular upward rotation was measured with an inclinometer with the arm at rest, and at 45, 90, and 135 degrees of humeral elevation. Measurements were made pre- and postswim training.

RESULTS
There were no differences in baseline measurements of kinematics between the two groups. After swimming, both groups experienced muscle fatigue as indicated by a significant reduction in force generation. Although swimming practice resulted in no significant differences in scapular kinematics for the healthy swimmers, there were significant decreases in scapular upward rotation in subjects with shoulder impingement.

CONCLUSIONS
Abnormal scapular kinematics in swimmers with impingement syndrome may only be observed after an intense swim practice. The examination of swimmers immediately after swimming may provide more information regarding impingement syndrome than a typical clinical exam.


Designers' empathy plays an important role in supporting socially conscious design. Although widely studied in engineering design, most of the research on empathy focuses on designers' ability to empathize with primary users; little attention is given to empathizing with those affected in a secondary or tertiary capacity – an important consideration when evaluating the broader impacts of design decisions in the context of sustainability. Moreover, little research has investigated the influence of designers' internal traits (e.g., beliefs, attitudes, and intentions) on their emphasis on environmental sustainability. Such an investigation could reveal the role of developing internal and interpersonal traits in sustainable design education. In this paper, we explore this gap by introducing student designers to a hands-on sustainable design workshop. We compared changes in their trait empathy and their beliefs, attitudes, and intentions towards sustainability from before to after the workshop. We also compared the relationship between these individual differences and participants' self-evaluated sustainability of their solutions. We see that participants reported an increase in their beliefs and intentions towards sustainability and a decrease in personal distress from before to after the workshop. Furthermore, participants who received the sustainable design lecture reported that their solutions were more sustainable in terms of disposal, salvaging, and recycling. Finally, trait empathy significantly predicted the self-evaluated sustainability of solutions on the following dimensions of sustainable design: disposal, recycling, and finding wholesome alternatives. These findings call for future work into the influence of designers' individual differences on their approach to sustainable design.


Abstract Declarations of independence continue to be commonplace in international affairs, yet their efficacy as means towards statehood remains disputed in traditional international legal and political thinking and conduct. Consequently, recent scholarship on state recognition and emerging statehood suggests that the international persistence of such declarations should be understood in the context of broader international processes, narratives, and assemblages of state creation. Such suggestions, however, risk reifying declarations' effectiveness more in relation to international structure(s) than to independence movement's own agency. This article, therefore, calls for a reframing of declarations of independence as a ritual in international relations. It argues that participating in the international ritual of independence declaration forms an attempt to 'fuse' the movement's political practice with international recognition, serves to express an internal belief in 'redemption' through the 'ascension' into the 'celestial' existence of recognised statehood, and offers an opportunity to internally bolster political community through political performance. Ritual theory, thus, uncovers how the global persistence of independence declarations cannot be explained merely through discrete oppositions of non-recognition versus recognition, belief versus reality, and/or non-state versus state community, and instead opens up new space for understanding the contradictions characterising the international political (in)significance and persistence of statehood declarations.


Development of a water-free dyeing process for cotton is essential for the textile industry due to ecological and economical reasons. In this study, a dyeing method is described where cotton has been effectively dyed in supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2). Excellent dye fixation of 100%, and colour strength (K/S) values up to 30, were achieved in a small batch reactor and in a scale-up vessel. A series of non-polar reactive dyes with fluorotriazine as reactive group were synthesised at our laboratory. Fluorotriazines were found to be the best dyes for dyeing cotton and their reaction with cotton was improved by adding small quantities of acids to the reaction medium. H3PO4 and HAc were tested at different concentrations on cotton dyed with fluorotriazines. Evenly dyed pieces of cotton without any damage to the cotton fibres were observed in all experiments. An important step forward has been made for the future commercialization of a green process for industrially dying cotton in scCO2. Elimination of water and its costly treatment can be now achieved in the cotton dyeing process.


The concept of Flexicurity has been receiving much attention as the European social model. One of the most important concepts within the flexicurity approach is employment security, the security of having secure and continuous employment career, which may entail changing employers and jobs. How do European individuals subjectively perceive their employment security? In addition, which individual characteristics can explain for feeling employment insecurity? Are there differences found across countries, and why is this the case? In this paper, we examine the various individual as well as national level characteristics that can explain individuals' perception of their employment security. To do this we use a multi-level model, where contextual effects are taken into account and individuals are considered to be embedded in countries. The data used for analysis is the 4th wave of the European Social Survey for 22 countries for the year 2008/2009. We find that various individual level characteristics such as demographic, human and social capital, as well as attitude variables explain why an individual feels employment insecure. At the country level, it seems that labour market and economic situations are more important than institutions in explaining the cross-national variance of employment insecurity perceptions.


Almost twenty years have passed since the advent of the internet. The revolutionary nature of the technology is no longer in doubt. It has transformed the way we communicate, recreate, carry on business and conduct our affairs. Despite the internet's "differentness", courts have proven adept at adapting extant law to the features and demands of this new technology. In this paper, I propose in some detail the manner in which courts should interpret law and (just as importantly) internet facts in connection with broadly stated legal rules. My basic argument is that courts must be appreciate both the totality of facts presented by the internet activity as well as the purpose behind the rule to ensure an appropriate determination of whether an activity falls within or outside of a rule. In part 1, I highlight the differences between the internet and other technologies which might, depending on the legal issue, justify the exclusion of the internet from established rules on the basis of analogical reasoning. But where we might expect the internet differences to be so great as to justify exclusion from an extant rule, courts may create separate (or tiered) meanings of the same rule in connection with real space, on the one hand, and the internet, on the other. I then examine the way in which internet facts may be perceived by interpreters. At the most general level, the internet presents interpreters with external (or technical) and internal (or functional) perspectives. While courts often adopt one perspective or the other, it is critical that they consider both so that all affected interests are considered; once that happens, courts can then determine whether, and how, to calibrate the inherent (and possibly affected) interests that make up the purpose of a rule. In part 2, I discuss two dominant approaches to legal interpretation – literalism and purposivism. I briefly discuss these approaches and illustrate how the choice of interpretive approach can have a determinative impact on the outcome of a case. Moreover, I argue that courts must take a purposive approach to legal interpretation as the best guard against inappropriate applications of a rule to a new technology. In part 3, I bring together all of these tools of analysis to propose a methodology for the manner in which courts should approach interpretation of the law and the internet. The paper concludes with an illustration of this method in SOCAN v. Canadian Association of Internet Providers.


The purpose of this study is to examine the synergistic effects of market orientation implementation and internalization on firm performance, specifically financial performance and customer service performance. Market orientation implementation component enables firms to sense and respond to customer needs effectively while market orientation internalization component allows the firm to internalize a shared set of market oriented norms and values at the cultural level. Another objective of the study is to analyze if various forms of market orientation exist based on implementation and internalization levels exhibited by firms. Market orientation practices of firms in a direct mail service provider industry are analyzed. Market orientation internalization is introduced as a mediator between market orientation implementation and firm performance relationship. In addition, the effect of learning orientation is also considered as a moderator that strengthens the relationship between market orientation implementation and market orientation internalization. Theoretical predictions of Kirca, Bearden, and Hult (2011) conceptual model are empirically tested. The firms are clustered into one of the four forms of market orientation based on varying levels of implementation and internalization. The inter-relationships between forms of market orientation and its differential effects on various performance measures are analyzed. Overall, the results suggest that firms that practice high levels of implementation and internalization perform better in both financial performance and customer service performance. Results also suggest that performance metrics vary depending on the form of market orientation.


Marine renewable energy promises to provide a significant contribution to the future electricity supply. It is estimated that 17% of today's UK electricity demand could be generated from wave and tidal sources. The ambition to harvest this resource is in the public interest, as it eases the pressures on energy security, holds the potential to reduce carbon emissions and has the prospect to create a new UK industry sector worth £15 billion. From an engineering perspective, marine energy is one of the least developed renewable energy technologies and has to be regarded as unproven. The reliability of components and devices in the harsh marine environment is one of the main engineering challenges. Reliability assessments and the assurance of acceptable reliability levels are dependant on the adequacy of failure information, which is scantily available for marine energy. This thesis shows that large failure rate uncertainties impede the reliability assessment for wave energy converters and how a suite of experimental, numerical and statistical methods can be applied to improve scarcely available reliability information. The analysis of component load conditions identifies fatigue as failure mode of concern and the fatigue life of mooring lines and marine power cables is quantified in a floating wave energy application. A Bayesian statistical approach and dedicated service-simulation component testing is proposed, and implemented to improve the quality of reliability estimates and to provide relevant data and assurance. The methods presented, along with the results, will assist reliability assessment and design during early development stages, and will inform the prediction of maintenance requirements during operation. Reliable marine energy systems will be the technical enabler for the successful transition of prototype devices to a commercially viable marine energy industry.


Eighty-five uropathogen isolates were collected and differentiated on the basis of their Gram stain reaction. Among the collected isolates, 25 (29.4%) were Gram positive cocci and 60 (70.6%) were Gram negative bacilli. Antibiotic susceptibility profile towards 15 different antibiotics concluded that impenime (IMP), amikacin (AK) and Pipperacillin/tazobactam (TZP) were the most effective against Gram negative; while linezolid (LZD), and vancomycin (VA) were the most potent against Gram positive. The highly drug resistant isolates were identified as Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae using 16srRNA; the two strains were subjected to different doses of gamma-radiation and the sub lethal dose of both strains was 5.0 kGy. The D10 values were recorded (1.2 and 1.1 kGy) for P. aeruginosa and K. pneumoniae), respectively. In addition, gamma-irradiation technique decreases the resistance of K. pneumoniae towards IMP and the resistance of P. aeruginosa towards more than one antibiotic (TZP, AZM and CIP). The results also, revealed that both of the tested strains had the ability to produce Extended Spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) before and after gamma-radiation but only P. aeruginosa had the ability to produce Metallo β-lactamase (MBL), that is, ESBL and MBL co-production was detected in P. aeruginosa. So, these findings must be supported by other studies on the level of genes to prove the possibility for using gamma-irradiation technique to overcome microbial drug resistance problem.

 Key words: Urinary tract infection, antibiotic resistance, β-lactamases, gamma radiation.


Hydrogen titanate nanowires were prepared by hydrothermal method in 10 M NaOH followed by ion-exchanging process. Titanate nanowire thin films were successfully obtained by spray Layer-by-Layer (spray LbL) method within a short time. Due to the good dispersion state of the nanowires in an aqueous suspension and their linear morphology, titanate nanowires effectively adsorbed on the glass substrate. As a reference, TiO2-anatase nanoparticle thin films were also prepared by spray LbL method


Pityriasis lichenoides is a rare idiopathic cutaneous disorder, with a clinical-histopathological spectrum comprising the acute varioliform form (Mucha-Habermann's disease), its febrile ulceronecrotic variant, and its chronic form. Systemic manifestations may occur in the febrile ulceronecrotic variant, with reports of adult mortality. The case of a young male patient with clinical and histopathological diagnosis of Mucha-Habermann's disease, febrile ulceronecrotic variant, with severe mucosal involvement - an occasional incidence even in the most severe forms of pityriasis lichenoides - is presented. In addition to the atypical clinical aspect, an excellent therapeutic result is shown with the association of prednisone and methotrexate.


8-10% of Swedish women have been subject to sexual abuse. The sexual abused child is in a difficult situation. She feels that she cannot tell anybody anything. She is surrounded by shame, difficulty to remember, fear of not being believed in, feeling of catastrophe ie. The primary task of child and adolescent psychiatry is to give the sexual abused child an opportunity to feel safe and to help her repairing the damages that might occurred. Child and adolescent psychiatry should also participate in the legal process of sexually abused children, because the possibilities of repairing the wounds caused by a sexual abuse depends upon the child's confirmation of its credibility. The child and adolescent psychiatric investigation should be kept between the limits that are allowed by the professional methods and not make statements on subjects we don't know just because the legal process wishes us to.


Craniospinal radiation therapy for treatment of brain tumors may result in growth hormone (GH) insufficiency with resultant linear growth retardation, one of the most common complications. We report the case of a 10-year-old boy presenting headache associated to vertigo, nausea and vomiting. A CT scan showed an homogeneous mass in the left cerebelar hemisphere, that was surgically removed. The histopathological examination revealed medulloblastoma and the patient was submitted to craniospinal radiation. He did not present tumor recurrence nor neurological or cognitive deficits during 4 years, but evolved to short stature due to GH deficiency. Nowadays, he is being receiving GH 0,1 U/kg/day and has presented 4cm stature increment after 6 months. The present case highlights the importance in carefully monitoring of children after cranial radiation for oncologic treatment, because they may develop hormonal deficiencies, that can be successfully replaced.


Innovative changes in undergraduate Nursing programs have brought about new methodologies and the need for cost evaluation. This study aims to develop a model for cost estimation, and to estimate educational costs of an integrated Nursing curriculum at a public university. This is a case study conducted in stages: model development, data collection, analysis and interpretation. The cost-construction model consisted of six steps: data collection; educational and support activity costs; four-year course educational costs; educational support costs; joint product costs and total educational costs. Findings showed a total educational cost per student/year US$ 3,788.82. Course team faculty included 97 members. The cost analysis in faculty contact hours is the most appropriate cost unit as it most consistently reflects faculty time devoted to teaching. The knowledge about educational costs provided information that may be useful for a different approach to the integrated curriculum management, with a view to putting its educational objectives in practice.


. The penetration of smart technologies in Greek Primary Schools is at its very beginning, even though we are going through a period of digitization of education practices. Most Greek Public Schools do not own smart learning systems. As a result, lagging in new educational practices that trending on other countries and alternative educational systems. The lack of infrastructure in all public schools is related to the long economic recession that Greece has suffered and the low reserves of the country's local authorities that maintain and equip public schools. Even if a school own any electronic alternative system in educational process, it is not technologically at the cutting edge but at least a decade behind. Greek schools still use conventional writing and reading systems. Rarely Primary schools' own laptops, projectors and smartboards for the teaching prosses. Teachers still communicate with parents in person, about their students' performance during long meetings in the school building and it is not even applicable for parents to register their children on line. All the above is happening in a modern European country that trains and grows tomorrow's millennials. In this essay we focus on Public Primary Schools and on teachers' views on the smart education tools available to them related to the teaching prosses and their acceptance from the student's perspective. We were interested about the effectiveness of the methods, the receptivity of the young students, and the interest they are showing in using smart learning practices. We also involved teachers to indicate their students' concentration, receiving knowledge and ability after using smart devices in learning. Finally, we asked teachers to evaluate students' ability in new technologies in an effort to relate it to family income.


In order to study how neurons in the primary motor cortex (MI) are dynamically linked together during skilled movement, we recorded simultaneously from many cortical neurons in cats trained to perform a reaching and retrieval task using their forelimbs. Analysis of task-related spike activity in the MI of the hemisphere contralateral to the reaching forelimb (in identified forelimb or hindlimb representations) recorded through chronically implanted microwires, was followed by pairwise evaluation of temporally correlated activity in these neurons during task performance using shuffle corrected cross-correlograms. Over many months of recording, a variety of task-related modulations of neural activities were observed in individual efferent zones. Positively correlated activity (mainly narrow peaks at zero or short latencies) was seen during task performance frequently between neurons recorded within the forelimb representation of MI, rarely within the hindlimb area of MI, and never between forelimb and hindlimb areas. Correlated activity was frequently observed between neurons with different patterns of task-related activity or preferential activity during different task elements (reaching, feeding, etc.), and located in efferent zones with dissimilar representation as defined by intracortical microstimulation. The observed synchronization of action potentials among selected but functionally varied groups of MI neurons possibly reflects dynamic recruitment of network connections between efferent zones during skilled movement.


This course guide is designed for SOWK 554: Qualitative Methods in Social Work . It includes a collection of resources available through UBC Library and on the web


The piezoresistive and ohmic contact properties of polycrystalline silicon nano thin films were investigated in this paper. The polycrystalline silicon films with different thicknesses and doping concentrations were deposited by LPCVD and doped with boron highly, and then the cantilever beam samples were fabricated by photolithography and wet etching. By measuring the gauge factor and specific contact resistivity, the specific contact resistivity of Al contacts can reach 2.4×10-3Ω·cm2 after the alloying at 450 °C for 20 min; the enhanced piezoresistive effect of highly doped polycrystalline silicon nano thin films was discovered. The conclusions indicated that the enhanced piezoresistive sensitivity of PNTFs is due to the modification of depletion region barrier by ultra high doping and film thickness thinning and the enhancement of tunneling piezoresistive effect. The distinct piezoresistive phenomenon of PNTFs could be utilized for the development and fabrication of miniature piezoresistive sensors.


This paper researches on the hydrating capacity of HPC on freezing shaft lining in special thick alluvium as well as the temperature state and temperature stress of lining. Through building and calculating temperature field model of HPC on freezing shaft lining, it elaborates that temperature stress is the leading cause of lining crack. And we should control such a problem by tackling temperature difference and deformation; According to the principle of "working resistance and relaxation concurrently", stuffing emulsified asp halt mixture between the inner and outer linings (60mm) as a sliding layer can lessen restriction between them and reduce temperature, thus control the problem of well case cracking of HPC on freezing shaft lining fundamentally. The control effect is obvious after practicing in some mine projects in Huainan mining area. Keywords: high performance concrete on freezing shaft lining,temperature stress,temperature difference and deformation,emulsified asphalt mixture, sliding layer


The creation of chronologies from intra-annual features in tree rings is increasingly utilized in dendrochronology to create season-specific climate histories, among other applications. A conifer latewood-width network has recently been developed for the southwestern United States, but considerable uncertainty remains in understanding site and species differences in signal strength and sample depth requirements. As part of the 22nd annual North American Dendroecological Fieldweek, the first Pinus ponderosa earlywood-width (EW) and latewood-width (LW) chronologies were developed for the Jemez Mountains in northern New Mexico. The aim was to extend an existing total ring-width (TW) chronology and to assess the potential for creating long LW chronologies. Analysis of chronology signal strength suggests that large sample size requirements remain a considerable hurdle for creating P. ponderosa LW chronologies longer than 400 years. At the Cat Mesa site, twenty-three sample trees were required to capture a statistically acceptable common signal in adjusted latewood (LWa), whereas only four samples were required for EW. This is significantly higher than sample depth requirements for LWa from the few other chronologies in the region where this statistic has been reported. A future priority should be to develop a conceptual guide for site and tree selection in order to maximize the potential for enhancing LW signal and for creating a robust network of multi-century LW chronologies.


Examining how our basic values affect development processes is the overall theme of this thesis. In practice, the question is investigated in relation to software development and organizational change and in research, in relation to science and its relationship to common sense, specifically within the area of Human Computer Interaction. The thesis discusses how it might be possible to discover what is essential for development processes and why the essential may be interpreted as something other than the simply obvious. This thesis examines ways of studying and understanding our social environment and development processes, particularly those concerning people, organizations and software. The empirical examples deal with a software development project and a project that scrutinized the strategy for a governmental authority's business and information technology. Attitudes are discussed in terms of how they view the user, the customer, the software developers, the software, organizational and implementation processes, organizational management, aesthetic values, functionality and use, research, methods, paradigmatic approaches, ethical issues, psychological reactions, sociological prerequisites, categorizations of people and stress-related health consequences. One particular prerequisite for developing superior computer-supported office work has repeatedly presented itself: an open, questioning attitude towards the software development process, towards organizational change and towards the people working in the organizations. A similar attitude towards research and its design can be crucial to the development of new knowledge. This circumstance can be interpreted as an indication of how important it is that we be aware of and question our preconceived notions, in order to develop an autonomous behavior where we take responsibility for our actions. By doing so, we can avoid misinterpretations and not get trapped into making categorizations that are simply obvious. This is essential and must be emphasized in our search for the path to »healthy work«.


Technological upgrading dynamics in subsidiaries operating in emerging regions remain an under researched topic. This study aims to examine the role of headquarters and subsidiaries in the upgrading process of subsidiaries in regional agreements among emerging countries. It also examines how the multi-level normative frame regulating such agreements affects the accumulation of technological capabilities. A single case study has been designed to examine the process of upgrading of automotive subsidiaries operating in MERCOSUR, covering the period 1991 and 2012. Among the main findings, the study concludes that the decision to promote technological upgrading in subsidiaries in emerging regions remains at the level of headquarters during the early stages of the learning process. Only when subsidiaries go beyond a capability threshold, they are able to gain autonomy to make autonomous learning initiatives. Furthermore, it was found that the functionally-integrated network organised by the headquarters within the MERCOSUR region adopted a highly hierarchical structure lead by the Brazilian unit, which truncated the learning process of the Argentinean subsidiary. The intra-firm hierarchies were accentuated by the characteristics of the MERCOSUR normative framework that did not included provisions to counterbalance growing asymmetries within the region.


ABSTRACT
 Tropical sod webworm, Herpetogramma phaeopteralis Guenée, is an important pest of warm-season turfgrass in the Gulf Coast states of the United States, the Caribbean Islands, and Central America. Current control recommendations rely on topical application of insecticides against caterpillars. The objective of this study was to generate resistance baseline data of H. phaeopteralis to six insecticide classes. Residual activity of clothianidin, chlorantraniliprole, and bifenthrin was also compared under field conditions in Central Florida. Chlorantraniliprole was the most toxic compound tested (LC50 value of 4.5 ppm), followed by acephate (8.6 ppm), spinosad (31.1 ppm), clothianidin (46.6 ppm), bifenthrin (283 ppm) and Bacillus thuringiensis kurstaki, (342 ppm). In field tests, all compounds at label rates were effective (≥94% mortality of larvae exposed to fresh residues). However, a more rapid decline in activity of clothianidin and bifenthrin was observed compared with chlorantraniliprole. Clothianidin had no statistically detectable activity after 4 wk post-application in spring and the fall, and bifenthrin had no detectable activity after 3wk in the spring and the fall. However, chlorantraniliprole maintained significant activity (≥84% mortality) compared with other treatments throughout the 5-wk study period. This study provides new information regarding the relative toxicities and persistence of current insecticides used for H. phaeopteralis and other turfgrass caterpillars.


FRICTION AND WEAR MEASURMENTS OF BOVINE ARTICULAR CARTILAGE AGAINST NONNATIVE MATERIALS Sevan R. Oungoulian The three studies reported in this thesis investigate the friction and wear properties of articular cartilage. The aim of the first study presented was to examine the functional properties and biocompatibility of glutaraldehyde-fixed bovine articular cartilage for potential use as a resurfacing material in joint arthroplasty. Treated cartilage disks were fixed over a range of glutaraldehyde concentrations and incubated, along with an untreated control group, at 37 °C for up to 28 days. The equilibrium compressive modulus increased nearly twofold in the treated samples when compared to day 0 control, and maintained that property value from day 1 to day 28; the minimum friction coefficient did not change significantly with fixation and incubation time, whereas the time constant for the frictional response decreased twofold at most. Live explants co-cultured with fixed explants showed no qualitative difference in cell viability over 28 days of incubation. Cartilage-on-cartilage frictional measurements were performed under the configuration of migrating contact for a subset of treated explants over a period of 28 days exhibited either no significant difference or slightly lower friction coefficient values than the untreated control group. These results suggest that a properly titrated glutaraldehyde treatment can reproduce the desired functional properties of native articular cartilage and maintain these properties for at least 28 days in-vitro. The aim of the second study was to determine whether the latest-generation particle analyzers are capable of detecting cartilage wear debris generated during in vitro loading experiments that last 24 h or less, by producing measurable content significantly above background noise levels otherwise undetectable through standard biochemical assays. Immature bovine cartilage disks were tested against glass using reciprocal sliding under unconfined compression creep for 24 h. Control groups were used to assess various sources of contamination. Results demonstrated that cartilage samples subjected to frictional loading produced particulate volume significantly higher than background noise and contamination levels at all tested time points. The particle counter used was able to detect very small levels of wear), whereas no significant differences were observed in biochemical assays for collagen or glycosaminoglycans among any of the groups or time points. The aim of the final study was to measure the wear response of immature bovine articular cartilage tested against glass or alloys used in hemiarthroplasties. Two cobalt chromium alloys and a stainless steel alloy were selected for these investigations. The surface roughness of one of the cobalt chromium alloys was also varied within the range considered acceptable by regulatory agencies. Cartilage disks were tested in a configuration that promoted loss of interstitial fluid pressurization to replicate conditions believed to occur in hemiarthroplasties. Results showed that considerably more damage occurred in cartilage samples tested against smooth stainless steel and rough cobalt chromium alloys compared to smooth glass, and smooth cobalt chromium alloys. The two materials producing the greatest damage also exhibited higher equilibrium friction coefficients. Cartilage damage occurred primarily in the form of delamination at the interface between the superficial tangential zone and the transitional middle zone, with much less evidence of abrasive wear at the articular surface. These results suggest that cartilage damage from frictional loading occurs as a result of subsurface fatigue failure leading to the delamination. Surface chemistry and surface roughness of implant materials can have a significant influence on tissue damage, even when using materials and roughness values that satisfy regulatory requirements.


Climate change and land-use change are having substantial impacts on biodiversity world-wide, but few studies have considered the impact of these factors together. If the combined effects of climate and land-use change are greater than the effects of each threat individually, current conservation management strategies may be inefficient and/or ineffective. This is particularly important with respect to freshwater ecosystems because freshwater biodiversity has declined faster than either terrestrial or marine biodiversity over the last three decades. This is the first study to model the independent and combined effects of climate change and land-use change on freshwater macroinvertebrates and fish. Using a case study in south-east Queensland, Australia, we built a Bayesian belief network populated with a combination of field data, simulations, existing models and expert judgment. Different land-use and climate scenarios were used to make predictions on how the richness of freshwater macroinvertebrates and fish is likely to respond in future. We discovered little change in richness averaged across the region, but identified important impacts and effects at finer scales. High nutrients and high runoff as a result of urbanization combined with high nutrients and high water temperature as a result of climate change and were the leading drivers of potential declines in macroinvertebrates and fish at fine scales. Synthesis and applications. This is the first study to separate out the constituent drivers of impacts on biodiversity that result from climate change and land-use change. Mitigation requires management actions that reduce in-stream nutrients, slows terrestrial runoff and provides shade, to improve the resilience of biodiversity in streams. Encouragingly, the restoration of riparian habitats is identified as an important buffering tool that can mitigate the negative effects of climate change and land-use change.


Microrobots are promising tools for the treatment of biological cells because of their lack of skill dependence, high throughput, and high repeatability. Integration of a microfluidic chip and robotics based on microelectromechanical systems technology is a key challenge for biomedical innovations. In addition to the advantage of environmental control by a microfluidic chip, robots enable physical operations on the cell with high throughput. This paper presents high-speed microrobotic actuation driven by permanent magnets in a microfluidic chip. The developed microrobot has a milli-Newton-level output force from a permanent magnet, micrometer-level positioning accuracy, and drive speed of over 280 mm/s. The riblet surface, which is a regularly arrayed V-groove, reduces fluid friction and enables high-speed actuation. Ni and Si composite fabrication was employed to form the optimum riblet shape on the microrobot's surface by wet and dry etching. The evaluation experiments show that the microrobot can be actuated at a rate of up to 90 Hz, which is more than ten times higher than that of the microrobot without a riblet. Two distinguish applications of the developed microrobots were demonstrated in a microfluidic chip.


Summary

1
We conducted survey and transplant studies to determine whether colonization and residency on soft sediments by introduced, fouling mussels (Dreissena polymorpha and D. bugensis) were affected by physical disturbance, and whether Dreissena presence in turn influenced the diversity and population densities of other benthic invertebrates. Surveys revealed that colony density was typically higher at moderate depths than at shallower and greater ones. However, the largest, midsummer colonies and greatest coverage of sediments by mussels occurred at deeper sites.

2
Disturbance of transplanted colonies varied by depth and colony size, with deeper and larger colonies experiencing the lowest destruction rates. Colony destruction rate was positively correlated with current velocity adjacent to the lakebed.

3
Absence of mussel colonies at shallow sites was not determined by recruitment or substrate limitation, as recruit density was higher and sediment characteristics more suitable for postveliger settlement at shallow than at deeper sites. Rather, seasonal storms have much stronger effects in shallow than in deep water.

4
Mussel residency on soft sediment has profound effects on invertebrate biodiversity. Invertebrate species (taxon) richness and total abundance were positively correlated with mussel colony area. Mussel-sediment habitat supported between 462 and 703% more taxa, and between 202 and 335% more individuals (exclusive of Dreissena) than adjacent soft-sediment lacking mussels.

5
Results from this study illustrate that physical disturbance directly limits the distribution of mussels on soft sediments, and the diversity and abundance of other benthic invertebrates in consequence.


In this paper, the mechanisms of light emissions, including NO-γ, NO-β and N2-SPS, produced in a N2/NH3 atmospheric-pressure dielectric barrier discharge considering realistic oxygen impurity (30 ppm) are investigated numerically and experimentally. Self-consistent, one-dimensional fluid modeling is used to numerically simulate the discharge process with 48 species and 235 reaction channels. An optical emission spectrometer (OES) is used to measure the relative intensities of the light emission. The simulations of the light emission intensities for the above-mentioned OES lines generally reproduce the trends observed in the experiments caused by changes in the NH3 concentration. All of the predicted intensities of NO-γ, NO-β and N2-SPS decrease with increasing amount of NH3 caused by various reaction mechanisms. The former is due to the loss of N2(A) and NO(A) by the reaction of NH3 with N2(A) and NO(A), respectively. The decrease in NO-β is due to the depletion of N and O because of NH3, and the decrease in N2-SPS is due to electron attachment to NH3 and a weaker metastable–metastable associative ionization of N2. All of the simulated results demonstrate that the discharges are typically Townsend-like because the ions outnumber the electrons and the electric field across the gap is distorted only slightly by the charged particles during the breakdown. Finally, a reduced chemical kinetics model for a planar atmospheric-pressure N2/O2/NH3 dielectric barrier discharge is proposed and validated by benchmarking against the above complete chemical kinetics. This results in a reduced chemical kinetics consisting of 33 species and 87 reactions with a very limited loss of accuracy of discharge properties, while it is 2.1 times faster in computational time as compared with the complete version.


The study of serum calcium level in PIH advocates the value of serum Ca++ a marker of pregnancy complicated by hypertension or severe pre-eclampasia. Total number of 100 patients admitted in G.M. Hospital, Rewa was studied was done in twice in relation to delivery. On the basis of current information it is clear that calcium supplementation during pregnancy lower blood pressure additionally the effect on smooth muscle relaxation detected in calcium supplemented patient may affect the incidence of prematurity. epidemiologic data suggest an inverse correlation between dietary calcium intake and incidence of PIH. However High Risk group such as pregnant teens, population with inadequate calcium intake, and women at risk of developing PIH may benefit from consuming additional dietary calcium.


Monolayers of thiols self-assembled on Au (111) can be made hydrophilic by functionalizing the surface with polar endgroups. The authors present scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) images of 2 such hydrophilic monolayers, one terminated by hydroxyl (mercaptoundecanol) and the other by amino groups (mercaptododecylamine). Both surfaces have a striped appearance but the period of the pattern is different. The authors examine the role of the formation of H bonds between the mols. in the layer and with polar coadsorbates (H2O and solvent) by comparing to STM images of nonpolar self-assembled monolayers and the results of mol. dynamics simulation. The structure of the amino-terminated layer is compatible with a H bond-induced reconstruction of the clean layer. The more dense stripe pattern obsd. for the hydroxyl-terminated layer is explained better by coadsorption with solvent (EtOH). Simulation shows that the ordered H bond configurations that might be stable for dry layers are largely dissolved by wetting. Similar wetting effects may also be responsible for the difficulties of obtaining mol. resoln. in STM imaging of hydrophilic layers. [on SciFinder (R)]


INTRODUCTION
In modern medicine professional relationship between the clinician and the patient is patient-centered. Patients become actively involved in the treatment decision making process and are encouraged to express their health-related preferences. Some patients may, however, refuse a favorable risk/benefit ratio treatment. This manuscript presents three cases of refusal of treatment by mentally competent surgical patients and discusses differences in their management.

CONCLUSION
To achieve the best medical outcome for patients who possess the Actual Understanding test of mental competence clinicians use the deliberate model of medical professional relationship. For patients demonstrating the Understanding test of mental competence and wishing to utilize their health-related preferences physicians are obliged to deploy the interpretive model of doctor-patient relationship. In mentally competent patients with an illness-induced acute psychological regression the interpretive model of doctor-patient relationship as an initial strategy and cognitive behavior therapy can be useful in modifying treatment rejecting behavior and improving medical outcome.


In deer, as in other group-living mammals, communication plays a crucial role in social interactions. Acoustic signals are particularly widespread and used by individuals of all ages and sexes in different social contexts. Over the past 20 years the interest in deer vocal communication has increased with the
development of new techniques in sound recording and acoustic analysis. In this paper, we present two studies on vocal communication in fallow deer and
discuss the methodological approach we applied to investigate and test the information content of calls used during reproduction and mother-offspring
interactions.


The behavior of polymer chains under stretching is a classical problem in polymer science. However, a fundamental question still in mist is how the stretching affects the interactions between polymer chains, especially when the tensions on the chains are unequal. In this work, we combine statistical theory and molecular simulations to study the influence of this tension disparity on the miscibility of athermal polymer systems. Through a minimal model, we demonstrate that when polymer chains of different lengths are under the same stretching disparate tension states among polymer chains can lead to either macroscopic or microscopic phase separation, depending on whether their ending points are mobile or not. Generally, the immiscibility found here is an entropic effect arising from conformational asymmetry between unequally stretched polymer chains. Our findings provide a new mechanism to explain the flow-induced demixing in polymer blends and indicate that heterogeneous structure can occur during stretching, simply as a result of nonmonodispersity in elastic polymer materials.


Statistics Indonesia (BPS) has been using Mobile Positioning Data (MPD) to support official statistics since 2016. As a source of big data, MPD also has veracity characteristics, indicating uncertainty in the data. Therefore, it is necessary to check that the data are good enough to allow further analysis and the quality assurance process. Currently, there is no established international standard for quality assurance of MPD. This paper describes the quality matrix used by BPS in examining data from mobile operators. BPS uses thirteen indicators in conducting quality assurance, where the inspection uses several different methods, such as setting a threshold, checking data completeness, and checking the form of data distribution. Exploratory Data Analysis is carried out to determine whether the data meets the requirements for further analysis. We conducted this research on a mobile network operator data for June - July 2020 as the basis for MPD analysis in 2021. Based on the inspection during this period, BPS can cooperate with this cellular operator to conduct data analysis in 2021. However, the operator must repeat the calculation of the required matrix as quality assurance every month.


How a native gecko manages to coexist with an alien rodent in the Mediterranean since thousands of years? What kind of eco-ethological adaptations or evolutionary adjustments enables this gecko to persist? The present study explores the interaction between the endemic European Leaf-toed gecko (Euleptes europaea) and the alien Black rat (Rattus rattus). In the last 30 years, we compared 26 populations inhabiting "rat" and "rat-free" islands and islets in Tunisia, Sardinia, Corsica and Southern France. Geckos' populations can persist despite the occurrence of rats. In the presence of rats: 1) geckos' average body size tends to decrease towards medium-sized individuals; 2) geckos shift their spatial behaviour avoiding to forage "in the open"; 3) geckos' body condition is not affected by the presence of rats. Moreover, shortly after rats' eradication, geckos' population structure seems to change and larger sized geckos prevail while the spatial behaviour is much more conservative. The mechanisms driving the interactions between the two species still need to be explained. Rats could represent a stressor for geckos, compete for space, be pest vectors and even predators. Coexistence of natives and aliens requires adaptive plasticity and evolutionary adjustments. In contexts where the risk of reinvasion is high, eradication programs need to be carefully evaluated, since the arrival of "new rats" on an island could have much more damaging effects on the insular biota than those caused by the eradicated population.


In this paper, we investigate a distributed Nash equilibrium computation problem for a time-varying multi-agent network consisting of two subnetworks, where the two subnetworks share the same objective function. We first propose a subgradient-based distributed algorithm with heterogeneous stepsizes to compute a Nash equilibrium of a zero-sum game. We then prove that the proposed algorithm can achieve a Nash equilibrium under uniformly jointly strongly connected (UJSC) weight-balanced digraphs with homogenous stepsizes. Moreover, we demonstrate that for weighted-unbalanced graphs a Nash equilibrium may not be achieved with homogenous stepsizes unless certain conditions on the objective function hold. We show that there always exist heterogeneous stepsizes for the proposed algorithm to guarantee that a Nash equilibrium can be achieved for UJSC digraphs. Finally, in two standard weight-unbalanced cases, we verify the convergence to a Nash equilibrium by adaptively updating the stepsizes along with the arc weights in the proposed algorithm.


Purpose of the Study. Patients with HLA-DR3 or DR4 alleles are at increased risk for the development of celiac disease. However, not all genetically susceptible individuals develop celiac disease. The objective of this study was to investigate whether there was an association between the timing of exposure to gluten and subsequent development of celiac disease autoimmunity (CDA) in children with a genetic predisposition for celiac disease. Study Population. Children (n = 1560) were identified in the Denver, Colorado, metropolitan area with an increased risk for celiac disease (or type 1 diabetes), defined as having either a first-degree relative with type 1 diabetes or positive cord blood screening for HLA-DR3 or DR4 alleles. This study was conducted over 10 years with a mean follow-up of 4.8 years. Methods. This was a prospective, observational study. Infant diet data were collected during telephone or face-to-face interviews at 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15 months of age. No dietary advice was given to the families. Children had blood drawn at 9, 15, and 24 months and annually thereafter for the measurement of the celiac disease autoantigen, and tissue transglutaminase (tTG). After 1 or 2 positive tTG autoantibody results, small-bowel biopsy was offered to the families, although not all had this procedure performed. The primary outcome of the study was the time to development of CDA defined as the presence of tTG autoantibodies on 2 consecutive results or a positive small-bowel biopsy after a single tTG-positive test. Results. Fifty-one children developed CDA. Children exposed to foods containing wheat, barley, or rye in the first 3 months of life had a 5 times increased odds ratio (P = .02) of CDA as compared with children first exposed to gluten at 4 to 6 months of age. Twenty-five of the CDA-positive children had biopsy-proven celiac disease. In these children, exposure to gluten in the first 3 months of life had a 23 times increased risk (P = .001) of CDA. In the biopsy-proven cohort, children not exposed to gluten until >7 months of age also had a significantly increased risk of CDA (odds ratio: 4; P = .04). There was no association between the development of CDA and the timing of introduction of oats or rice. No protective effect of breastfeeding was found with the development of CDA. Although all children in the cohort were exposed to gluten by 12 months of age, the first positive tTG autoantibody test did not occur until 2 years of age, with a mean age of positive conversion of 4.7 years. Conclusions. In children at increased risk of developing celiac disease, timing of gluten exposure in the diet is associated with the appearance of CDA. Exposure to gluten in the first 3 months of life is thought to be associated with increased risk because of immature or incomplete intestinal barrier function. The authors speculate that late gluten exposure may have been associated with CDA because of greater amounts introduced in the older infants. Reviewer Comments. It is important to understand that this study population was specific children with genetic and family history characteristics at increased risk for the development of celiac disease and may not be generalizable to the entire population. Mean follow-up of this population was just under 5 years, and long-term follow-up of these patients is needed to determine if earlier exposure to gluten simply leads to earlier appearance of CDA and that many (if not all) exposed at-risk children would eventually develop CDA. This study also does not address the relationship between CDA and celiac disease.


There is increasing interest in using Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite data to remotely monitor groundwater storage variations; however, comparisons with ground‐based well data are limited but necessary to validate satellite data processing, especially when the study area is close to or below the GRACE footprint. The Central Valley is a heavily irrigated region with large‐scale groundwater depletion during droughts. Here we compare updated estimates of groundwater storage changes in the California Central Valley using GRACE satellites with storage changes from groundwater level data. A new processing approach was applied that optimally uses available GRACE and water balance component data to extract changes in groundwater storage. GRACE satellites show that groundwater depletion totaled ∼31.0 ± 3.0 km3 for Groupe de Recherche de Geodesie Spatiale (GRGS) satellite data during the drought from October 2006 through March 2010. Groundwater storage changes from GRACE agreed with those from well data for the overlap period (April 2006 through September 2009) (27 km3 for both). General correspondence between GRACE and groundwater level data validates the methodology and increases confidence in use of GRACE satellites to monitor groundwater storage changes.


Food security in terms of adequate quantity and quality of food to lead a healthy life must be considered as the prime function of a food system. This study aimed to investigate the microbial quality of street-vended foods and the factors predisposing to their contamination. Interviews were conducted using a pre-tested questionnaire to collect data from 110 street vendors on their profile and hygiene practices. Standard methods were used for the enumeration of total bacterial counts and identification of Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. Examinations were made of 173 menu items, classified as snack foods, main dishes, sauces, and cold dishes. The microbial quality of most of the foods was within the acceptable limits (less than 5.0 log10 cfu/g), but samples of buko juices, fruit salads, burger bun with spaghetti, and pansit with pork had unacceptable levels of contamination with a total mean log  cfu/g of 7.1, 7.0, 6.1, and 6.0 respectively. S. aureus was detected in 104 food samples (60.1%) and 69 contained E. coli (39.9 %). Time and temperature abuse, exposure of food to flies, and poor hygiene practices during preparation and serving were likely the risk factors for contamination. Vendors have to receive education and training on food hygiene to improve the safety of street foods in Ozamiz City and thereby heighten the safety of consumer.   Keywords: bacteria, food contamination, food handling, food services, risk factors. Â


Dehydration is a condition when body loses or lacks liquid or water. Dehydration can occur due to an internal factor such as person's characteristics, and external factors such as the physical condition of environment, and environmental sanitation. An example of a person having the risk of dehydration is smoked fish workers because they are exposed to heat form burning dry coconut shells. The purpose of this study was to discover the correlation between worker characteristics, the physical condition of environment as well as environmental sanitation, and dehydration level. This study used cross sectional design with 19 respondents, and samples were taken using simple random sampling technique. The study took place at RW 02 Kelurahan Kenjeran, Kecamatan Bulak, Surabaya starting from February 2018 until finished. Data were analyzed using cross tabulation, and statistic tests which were chi square and Kolmogorov smirnov with 95% confidence level. Data were collected by measurement, interview, observation, and examination. The results showed that there was correlation between the physical condition of environment which included temperature (p=0,003<0,05) and humidity (p=0,001<0,05). The conclusion of this study was that the physical condition of environment including temperature and humidity had an important role to the dehydration level of the smoked fish workers.


In this paper we will outline some theoretical and empirical aspects of the research carried out by the Pisa research group on lexical complexity. The notion of "lexical complexity" has been investigated from a specific angle – namely, starting from the assumption that languages are complex systems within which different types of structures act as organizers in order to make it possible for cognition to handle the immense amount of information involved in the communicative process. We have put forward the hypothesis that lexical items may themselves be viewed as complex dynamical microsystems which organize conceptual material in multiple ways depending on the task at stake. Within this view, which admittedly draws inspiration from the theories of complex dynamical systems elaborated by the empirical sciences, words act at the same time as cues of mental representations, triggers of ad hoc conceptual constructions, and anchors which prevents meanings from verging on the border of chaos. These hypotheses have proved substantial both in a translational and in a lexicographical perspective. The paper is divided into four main sections: the first sketches an outline of the properties shared by theories of complex systems in different fields; the second provides the essential arguments supporting the view that the lexicon can indeed be conceived of as a complex dynamical system; the third presents a case study for lexical complexity and briefly discusses its implications for translation; the fourth presents the prototype of a lexicographic encyclopaedic file developed by the research group.


In bankruptcy, business realities collide with legal rules that themselves create conflicting rights. Unsurprisingly, accommodations are made. Consent bridges gaps among conflicting legal rules and business realities, justifying pragmatic solutions to problems that could not otherwise be imposed under prevailing legal rules. Consent's transformative power is so essential to the bankruptcy process, that resort to consent, in principle and in rhetoric, is reflexive in bankruptcy. Manufacturing consent to support practical accommodations, rather than simply mirroring prebankruptcy entitlements, is at the heart of bankruptcy law as it has evolved in the United States. Bankruptcy uses a panoply of tools to generate consent: inertia, ambiguity, proxies, relaxed standards for establishing consent, novel procedures and institutional structures, and new substantive rights. New circumstances in the twenty-first century, and the teachings of experience, require close reexamination of how consent operates in bankruptcy, including whether certain consent requirements should be further relaxed or tightened. We critique current consent standards and practices in connection with (i) home mortgage modification; (ii) the one-consenting-class rule; (iii) sale free and clear orders; (iv) third-party releases; (v) sales of substantially all assets; (vi) balloting of conflicted parties; and (vii) proxy consents by official creditors' committees. Recently, most notoriously in the restructurings of Chrysler and General Motors, the advantages of reaching solutions by manufacturing consent rather than imposition have been too casually abandoned.


This study attempts to measure the effect of the implementation of the communicative approach (CA) on the speaking and listening skills of Iranian third year secondary students. In order to address this issue, a quantitative study was conducted on two randomly selected intact classes at renowned Bentolhoda Secondary School. These two classes were assigned as experimental group (20 students) and control group (20 students). Various communicative activities were used with the experimental group while the control group was exposed to traditional, non-communicative, instruction using structurally based methods, such as the audio-lingual method. A pre-test was administered to both groups at the beginning of the experiment to ensure that they had the same language background. At the end of the experiment, a post-test was assigned to both groups to determine whether the CA had positively affected the students' speaking abilities. The experiment lasted approximately four weeks of the second term of 2016. A final self-report questionnaire invited participants to evaluate their views (positive or negative) regarding CLT. The form designed by the researcher consists of 16 items in the students' opinion. The students have to rate each item according to their opinions.


This paper presents the development of a system dynamics model as a decision support tool for the integrated asset management of water distribution and wastewater collection systems. The proposed system dynamics model integrates physical infrastructure with finance and consumer sectors, and enables user rate-setting and planning of integrated water infrastructure operational and capital works over the life-cycle of the infrastructure (10 to 100 year planning horizon). In practice, the proposed decision support tool helps water utilities to evaluate various management strategies for meeting infrastructure service and financial performance indicators, comply with legislations, and make optimized asset management decisions.


Abstract. The seasonal changes in the globally averaged atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentrations reflect an important aspect of the global carbon cycle: the gas exchange between the atmosphere and terrestrial biosphere. The data on the globally averaged atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentrations, which are reported by Earth System Research Laboratory of the US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA/ESRL), could be used to demonstrate the adequacy of the global carbon-cycle models. However, it was recently found that the observed amplitude of seasonal variations in the atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentrations is higher than simulated. In this paper, the factors that affect the amplitude of seasonal variations are explored using a carbon-cycle model of reduced complexity. The model runs show that the low amplitude of the simulated seasonal variations may result from underestimated effect of substrate limitation on the seasonal pattern of heterotrophic respiration and from an underestimated magnitude of the annual gross primary production (GPP) in the terrestrial ecosystems located to the north of 25° N.


Despite being popular among amateur and professional lepidopterologists and posing great opportunities for evolutionary research, the phylogenetic relationships of tiger moths (Erebidae: Arctiinae) are not well resolved. Here we provide the first phylogenetic hypothesis for the subtribe Arctiina with the basic aim of clarifying the phylogenetic position of the Wood Tiger Moth Parasemia plantaginis Hübner, a model species in evolutionary ecology. We sampled 89 species in 52 genera within Arctiina s.l., 11 species of Callimorphina and two outgroup species. We sequenced up to seven nuclear genes (CAD, GAPDH, IDH, MDH, Ef1α, RpS5, Wingless) and one mitochondrial gene (COI) including the barcode region (a total of 5915 bp). Both maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference resulted in a well‐resolved phylogenetic hypothesis, consisting of four clades within Arctiina s.s. and a clade comprising spilosomine species in addition to Callimorphina and outgroups. Based on our results, we present a new classification, where we consider the Diacrisia clade, Chelis clade, Apantesis clade, Micrarctia Seitz and Arctia clade as valid genera within Arctiina s.s., whereas Rhyparia Hübner syn.n. and Rhyparioides Butler syn.n. are synonymized with Diacrisia Hübner; Neoarctia Neumoegen & Dyar syn.n., Tancrea Püngeler syn.n., Hyperborea Grum‐Grshimailo syn.n., Palearctia Ferguson syn.n., Holoarctia Ferguson syn.n., Sibirarctia Dubatolov syn.n. and Centrarctia Dubatolov syn.n. are synonymized with Chelis Rambur; Grammia Rambur syn.n., Orodemnias Wallengren syn.n., Mimarctia Neumoegen & Dyar syn.n., Notarctia Smith syn.n. and Holarctia Smith syn.n. are synonymized with Apantesis Walker; and Epicallia Hübner syn.n., Eucharia Hübner syn.n., Hyphoraia Hübner syn.n., Parasemia Hübner syn.n., Pericallia Hübner syn.n., Nemeophila Stephens syn.n., Ammobiota Wallengren syn.n., Platarctia Packard syn.n., Chionophila Guenée syn.n., Eupsychoma Grote syn.n., Gonerda Moore syn.n., Platyprepia Dyar syn.n., Preparctia Hampson syn.n., Oroncus Seitz syn.n., Acerbia Sotavalta syn.n., Pararctia Sotavalta syn.n., Borearctia Dubatolov syn.n., Sinoarctia Dubatolov syn.n. and Atlantarctia Dubatolov syn.n. are synonymized with Arctia Schrank, leading to 33 new genus‐level synonymies. Our focal species Arctia plantaginis comb.n. is placed as sister to Arctia festiva comb.n., another widespread aposematic species showing wing pattern variation. Our molecular hypothesis can be used as a basis when adding more species to the tree and tackling interesting evolutionary questions, such as the evolution of warning signalling and mimicry in tiger moths.


In this editorial we discuss the increasing interest in mixed methods approaches to educational research generally, including educational technology. In recent years AJET has seen an increase in the submission of research using mixed methods approaches. Mixed methods are attractive to many researchers because they have the potential to provide both breadth and depth in the same study. However, combining qualitative and quantitative methods does pose some specific challenges to researchers that need to be considered, and should be reported.


The dynamic analysis of behavior of solid particles in porous media such as settling processes are important for the dimensioning increasingly precise of pieces of equipment that promote the solid-liquid separation. Several factors can influence in dynamics of the fall of solid particles into a fluid medium; among them, the shape, distribution of sizes, and particle density. The main objective of this work is to analyze the behavior of solid-solid system based on the shape, size distribution and density of solid particles. The initial settling velocity in batch settling tests and the accommodation of particles in the sediment formed are evaluated for different materials. The gamma-ray attenuation technique was used in the experimental tests. Comparison of results obtained allowed evaluating in an exploratory research the significance of variables involved.


This paper adds a highly-leveraged financial sector to the Ramsey model of economic growth and shows that this causes the economy to behave in a highly volatile manner: doing this strongly augments the macroeconomic effects of aggregate productivity shocks. Our model is built on the financial accelerator approach of Bernanke, Gertler and Gilchrist (BGG), in which leveraged goods-producers, subject to idiosyncratic productivity shocks, borrow from a competitive financial sector. In the present paper, by contrast, it is the financial institutions which are leveraged and subject to idiosyncratic productivity shocks. Financial institutions can only obtain their funds by paying an interest rate above the risk-free rate, and this risk premium is anti-cyclical, and so augments the effects of shocks. Our parameterisation, based on US data, is one in which the leverage of the financial sector is two and a half times that of the goods-producers in the BGG model. This causes a much more significant augmentation of aggregate productivity shocks than that which is found in the BGG model.


Introduction: Currently, there has been an increasing concern about the provision of palliative care in non-oncological patients in both professional literature and clinical practice. However, there is not much scientific information on how to provide neurological and palliative care together. The main objective of the project is to create and to verify a concept of neuro-palliative and rehabilitative care for patients with selected neurological diseases in an advanced stage of the disease and also to evaluate biopsychosocial and spiritual needs of these patients and their caregivers related to the quality of life using created standardized tools. Methodology: Triangulation of research methods (qualitative and quantitative) will be used. A concept of care and assessment tools will be developed by analyzing interviews and focus groups. Qualitative data will be analyzed using grounded theory. The concept of care will be tested in the context of the intervention study. Using quantitative analysis, we will assess the effect of an intervention provided on the saturation of needs, quality of life, and quality of care. A research sample will be made up of the patients with selected neurological diseases (Parkinson ́s syndrome, motor neuron disease, multiple sclerosis, Huntington's disease), together with patients ́ family members. Based on the results, educational materials and a certified course for health care professionals will be created. Findings: Based on qualitative data analysis, we will propose the concept of integrated care model combining neurological, rehabilitative and specialist palliative care for patients with selected neurological diseases in different settings of care and services. Patients ́ needs related to quality of life will be described by newly created and validated measuring tools before the start of intervention (application of neuro-palliative and palliative approach) and then in the time interval. Conclusion: Based on the results, educational materials and a certified course for doctors and health care professionals will be created. Keywords—Multidisciplinary approach, neuropalliative care, research, quality of life.


Commercial extended-cavity semiconductor laser can be tuned over 100 nm around 1.55 |?m. This continuous tuning with no mode-hopping requires delicate factory adjustments and a high mechanical stability. We demonstrate that these constrains are relaxed by the insertion of a photorefractive crystal inside the cavity: the hologram recorded by the oscillating mode plays the role of an adaptive filter which stabilizes this oscillating mode. We achieved the experimental demonstration of the self-stabilization using a CdTe photorefractive crystal. Performing a numerical calculation, we also anticipated the further stability increase which could be obtained with optimized photorefractive crystals.


For the past quarter century, the author's partridge (Perdix perdix) population simulation model has been a useful guide, incorporating annual variation in chick survival rate, nesting habitat quality, nest predation, pesticides affecting the supply of insect food for the chicks and shooting. The 2 most important variables, density dependent nest predation and effect of insect food supply have been experimentally verified and all parts of the model have been extensively validated. However some very high densities achieved in northern France have not been fully explained. An ongoing conservation research project within the Sussex Downs Study (U.K.) area is described. The area is small (155 ha) but the numbers of partridges have increased ten-fold since 2003, with 57 per 100-ha in the autumn of 2005. Despite a very high density of pheasants no adverse effect of a caecal nematode (Heterakis gallinarum) has been detected. This project has been successful so far, but it has involved the removal of large numbers of meso-predators. Although legal, this predation control is unpopular and difficult. Moreover the smaller raptors are increasing and cannot be controlled. The question of whether the return of some top-predators could improve the situation for the partridge is explored by reference to experience in the USA and other countries. Few species have been studied more than the partridge yet, even more vigorous research will be necessary in future to meet the many challenges ahead.


The English language is in a state of perpetual change and "Partridge's Concise Dictionary of Slang and unconventional English" presents a snapshot of its state into the nineties. In this concise edition, Paul Beale continues the tradition begun in Eric Partridge's "A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English", while making it particularly relevant to our understanding of the language of the present day. More than 1500 new terms have been added - coinages of the 1980s that had not yet come to light when the unabridged edition last went to press in 1983. Like its parent volume, the concise edition provides a account of the vivid, racy, and informative elements of our language, documenting the living history of English and social history of the twentieth century.


Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is increasingly being recognized as a health and economic burden. PTSD can develop after witnessing or experiencing severe or life threatening trauma and is associated with a number of devastating symptoms that result in decreased quality of life. In addition, PTSD patients have difficulties integrating into society and are at greater risk for other neuropsychiatric disorders, including suicide and substance abuse. The prevalence of PTSD ranges from 8% to 12 % in the general population with a noticeably higher incidences in the US military (20 % -34 %). Current treatment strategies for PTSD are limited and provide only symptomatic relief.

Furthermore, many military-related PTSD cases are complicated with the presence of other comorbidities such as mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). Comorbid PTSD and mTBI pose particular challenges clinically; the similar symptomatic profiles and unclear presentations in the comorbid condition make it difficult to both diagnose and treat. As both military and civilian populations are increasingly exposed to traumatic stress and mTBI, establishing criteria that facilitate the discrimination between these conditions and developing new effective treatments should be a top priority. Animal models are an appropriate platform for conducting such studies. In Chapter 1, the epidemiology, diagnosis and pathophysiology of PTSD and TBI are reviewed. In addition, a quick summary of preclinical animal models of the two conditions is presented. The thesis then focuses on the establishment and validation of a chronic mouse model of PTSD (Chapter 2) and PTSD with comorbid repetitive mild TBI (Chapters 3). Chapter 4 investigates the key molecular mechanisms implicated in PTSD pathophysiology in a mouse model. Finally, the outcomes of a pilot treatment study are presented in Chapter 5.


Prolonged pair bonds have the potential to improve reproductive performance of socially monogamous animals by increasing pair familiarity and enhancing coordination and cooperation between pair members. However, this has proved very difficult to test robustly because of important confounds such as age and reproductive experience. Here, we address limitations of previous studies and provide a rigorous test of the mate familiarity effect in the socially monogamous blue-footed booby, Sula nebouxii, a long-lived marine bird with a high divorce rate. Taking advantage of a natural disassociation between age and pair bond duration in this species, and applying a novel analytical approach to a 24 year database, we found that those pairs which have been together for longer establish their clutches five weeks earlier in the season, hatch more of their eggs and produce 35% more fledglings, regardless of age and reproductive experience. Our results demonstrate that pair bond duration increases individual fitness and further suggest that synergistic effects between a male and female's behaviour are likely to be involved in generating a mate familiarity effect. These findings help to explain the age- and experience-independent benefits of remating and their role in life-history evolution.


An experiment was conducted to determine the effect of beak amputation on performance and egg quality characteristics of egg-type chickens. A total of 132 native layers (Yacon) chickens were obtained from a commercial hatchery for the study. There were four treatments in which upper and lower beaks were amputated at the age of 13 weeks, using different dimensions. Upper and lower beaks were not amputated in treatment 1 (U 0 L 0 ), 8mm of upper beak was amputated in treatment 2 (U 8 L 0 ), 8mm of upper beak and 3mm of lower beak were amputated in treatment 3 (U 8 L 3 ) while 8mm of upper beak and 6mm of lower beak were amputated in treatment 4 (U 8 L 6 ). Beak amputation depressed body weight gain and feed intake. Birds with intact beak (control) had the highest body weight gain and feed intake values of 9.74 and 86.98g/bird/day, respectively. Results obtained on pecking rate were statistically significant (P<0.05). Expectedly, pecking rate was lower in amputated pullets compared with what obtained in birds with intact beak. Rate of re-growth of upper and lower beaks was slower in treatment 3 compared with other treatments. Most of the parameters measured for egg quality traits were in favour of amputated pullet chicks. However, highest hen-day production of 69.06% was recorded for birds with intact beak while the lowest value of 56.02% was obtained in treatment 4 within the laying period of two months. This management practice had no adverse effect on performance and egg quality characteristics of native layers (Yacon) chickens.


Background Non photochemical reduction of PQ pool and mobilization of LHCII between PSII and PSI are found to be linked under abiotic stress conditions. The interaction of non photochemical reduction of PQ pool and state transitions associated physiological changes are critically important under anaerobic condition in higher plants. Methodology/Findings The present study focused on the effect of anaerobiosis on non-photochemical reduction of PQ pool which trigger state II transition in Arabidopsis thaliana. Upon exposure to dark-anaerobic condition the shape of the OJIP transient rise is completely altered where as in aerobic treated leaves the rise is unaltered. Rise in F o and F J was due to the loss of oxidized PQ pool as the PQ pool becomes more reduced. The increase in Fo′ was due to the non photochemical reduction of PQ pool which activated STN7 kinase and induced LHCII phosphorylation under anaerobic condition. Further, it was observed that the phosphorylated LHCII is migrated and associated with PSI supercomplex increasing its absorption cross-section. Furthermore, evidences from crr2-2 (NDH mutant) and pgr5 mutants (deficient in non NDH pathway of cyclic electron transport) have indicated that NDH is responsible for non photochemical reduction of the PQ pool. We propose that dark anaerobic condition accelerates production of reducing equivalents (such as NADPH by various metabolic pathways) which reduce PQ pool and is mediated by NDH leading to state II transition. Conclusions/Significance Anaerobic condition triggers non photochemical reduction of PQ pool mediated by NDH complex. The reduced PQ pool activates STN7 kinase leading to state II transition in A. thaliana.


We consider estimation of covariance matrices of stationary processes. Under a short-range dependence condition for a wide class of nonlinear processes, it is shown that the banded covariance matrix estimates converge in operator norm to the true covariance matrix with explicit rates of convergence. We also establish the consistency of the estimate of the inverse covariance matrix. These results are applied to a prediction problem, and error bounds for the finite predictor coeffi- cients are obtained. A sub-sampling approach is proposed to choose the banding parameter, and simulation results reveal its satisfactory performance for linear and certain nonlinear processes as the procedure is solely based on the second-order characteristics of the underlying process. Selection of the band parameter for non- linear processes remains an open problem.


The inner helicoid of the PDM's stator is a kind of typical inner surface that is complex and tenuous. This paper studies the theory to form the inner helicoid in the screw stator which has a large lead and whose cross-section is composed by convex and concave curves using disc milling method. According to the varieties of the curve types of workpiece's cross-section, a numerical method was proposed to calculate the theoretical contour shape of the disc milling cutter using coordinates of the fewer points on the workpiece's cross-section. The manufacturing test confirmed the correctness of the design algorithm of the cutter's profile and feasibility of this milling forming method.


Abstract Leading medical experts have cautioned about the risk of inappropriate behavioural responses as a result of fear of avian influenza (bird flu) even before a pandemic emerges, and have emphasised the need for appropriate risk communication strategies. There is a paucity of in‐depth qualitative research into the general public's understanding of, and reactions to, such potential health crises. Four focus groups were conducted in April 2006 and a further eight focus groups in July 2006, to examine people's knowledge, beliefs and behaviours in relation to avian influenza, with the primary aim being to inform the development of future communication strategies. It was clear from the focus groups that avian influenza is not a disease the participants perceive they are likely to acquire; it was not simply that Australia was far from mind when thinking of avian influenza, but that they also saw Australia as a haven protected from avian influenza. We found that, in general, participants see avian influenza as yet another example of media sensationalism—not as a disease that poses any real risk to Australia—and are clearly unprepared for a potential outbreak. Governments and health authorities should conduct further research to understand consumer perceptions of avian (or other pandemic) influenza, and attitudes towards the recommended protective behaviours, in order to pro‐actively develop communication strategies to rapidly inform the public and encourage appropriate behavioural responses in the event that the potential risk is realised. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


A jumping leg with one degree of freedom (DOF) is characterized by high rigidity and simple control. However, robots are prone to motion failure because they might tip over during the jumping process due to reduced mechanism flexibility. Mechanism design, configuration optimization, and experimentation were conducted in this study to achieve jumping stability for a bioinspired robot. With locusts as the imitated object, a one-DOF jumping leg mechanism was designed taking Stephenson-type six-bar mechanism as reference, and kinematic and dynamic models were established. The rotation angle of the trunk and the total inertia moment were used as stability criteria, and the sensitivity of different links to the target was analyzed in detail. With high-sensitivity link lengths as the optimization parameters, a configuration optimization method based on the particle swarm optimization algorithm was proposed in consideration of the different constraint conditions of the jumping leg mechanism. Optimization results show that this method can considerably improve optimization efficiency. A prototype of the robot was developed, and the experiment showed that the optimized trunk rotation angle and total inertia moment were within a small range and can thus meet the requirements of jumping stability. This work provides a reference for the design of jumping and legged robots.


Often lost in recollections of World War II is the eight-year conflict fought between Japan and China. The war claimed 14 million Chinese lives and, for a time, China was nearly cut off from contact with the outside world. But Charles E. Stuart, a dentist in the sleepy California beach town of Ventura who was passionate about amateur radio and a staunch defender of the nationalist Kuomintang party that controlled China was able to broadcast its message to the outside world. Working from a bunker carved deep into the rocks beneath the wartime Chinese capital of Chongqing, a cadre of young freelance journalists and Chinese information ministry employees operated a shortwave station known as XGOY to broadcast free China's news and information. Despite the fact that the station was constantly bombarded and Japanese forces jammed its signal, Doc Stuart's mastery of shortwave radio was able to capture and record XGOY's transmissions, while Stuart's wife, Alacia Held, tirelessly transcribed their contents for delivery to Chinese officials and news organizations in the United States. Without Doc Stuart, free China may have been completely cut off from the outside world.


Given only a few glimpses of an environment, how much can we infer about its entire floorplan? Existing methods can map only what is visible or immediately apparent from context, and thus require substantial movements through a space to fully map it. We explore how both audio and visual sensing together can provide rapid floorplan reconstruction from limited viewpoints. Audio not only helps sense geometry outside the camera's field of view, but it also reveals the existence of distant freespace (e.g., a dog barking in another room) and suggests the presence of rooms not visible to the camera (e.g., a dishwasher humming in what must be the kitchen to the left). We introduce AV-Map, a novel multi-modal encoder-decoder framework that reasons jointly about audio and vision to reconstruct a floorplan from a short input video sequence. We train our model to predict both the interior structure of the environment and the associated rooms' semantic labels. Our results on 85 large real-world environments show the impact: with just a few glimpses spanning 26% of an area, we can estimate the whole area with 66% accuracy—substantially better than the state of the art approach for extrapolating visual maps.


The volume of workspace is a significant kinematic index of parallel manipulator in some applications of engineering. However, the workspace degradation of the manipulator in extreme position is a demanding issue, which results in a fact that such manipulators cannot satisfy the machining requirement of the maximum limit position for the large-scale complex structural components. In this paper, a novel five degrees-of-freedom (DOF) 5PRR+5PUS-PRPU parallel manipulator (PM) is presented. First, the mobility analysis for the proposed manipulator is carried out, and the inverse kinematics as well as the Jacobian matrix is developed. Then, the workspace of the 5PRR+5PUS-PRPU PM and the 5PUS-PRPU PM is analyzed to study the workspace augmentation of the proposed PM. The workspace comparisons of these two PMs prove that the proposed PM not only can realize the large movement of the moving platform along the z-axis, but also possess larger workspace than the 5PUS-PRPU PM when the moving platform has a large movement along the z-axis. Furthermore, the singularity analysis is also conducted to show the singularity-free workspace of the proposed PM. By the introduction of the reconfigurable 5PRR PM, the proposed manipulator effectively augments the reachable workspace of the moving platform along the z-axis and to some extent also solves the issue of workspace degradation of the PM along z-axis.


Food webs in riparian corridors are increasingly viewed as embedded in complex riverine landscapes characterized by an amalgam of aquatic, semi‐aquatic, and terrestrial habitats. However, the influence of riverine landscape pattern on trophic dynamics of riparian consumers remains largely unknown. We used naturally abundant stable isotope ratios (δ15N) to compare trophic structure of ants (Formica subsericea) among riparian patch types (crop, grass/herbaceous, gravel bar, lawn, mudflat, shrub, swamp, and woody vegetation) at 12 riverine landscapes distributed along an urban‐rural landscape gradient of the Scioto River, Ohio, USA. We expected that the diet of F. subsericea, a common generalist consumer, would reflect local prey availability and thus differences in trophic dynamics among patch types. Mean ant δ15N was higher in crop patches than in any other patch type, and was lowest in grass/herbaceous, lawn, shrub, and woody vegetation patches, suggesting that patch type was associated with trophic position of F. subsericea. We also found that the range of δ15N, and thus trophic breadth, was significantly different by patch type, with woody vegetation exhibiting the greatest spread. Variability in canopy, tree and shrub cover, and the degree of urban development was positively correlated with δ15N range (R2 = 0.78), pointing to the role of habitat structure in mediating trophic breadth of riparian ants. These findings provide evidence that riverine landscape pattern can strongly influence trophic dynamics of riparian arthropods. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


On the basis of a financial analysis of the technological sectors in Ukraine's economy, the author reveals financial preconditions for the change of technological orders. The article shows the limited character of the theoretical concept for the technological evolution of economic systems, which fails to hold true under the conditions of transition economy. Under the unstable conditions of transition economies, the technological advancement regenerates into its antipode, i.e. technological degradation of the production with a greatly financial basis. Due to the limited character of the existing market mechanisms, the author justifies the need to create a financial mechanism for technological development of the national economy with the use of state regulation.