BACKGROUND
Providing feedback is a key aspect of simulated participants' (SPs) educational work. In teaching contexts, the ability to provide feedback to learners is central to their role. Suboptimal feedback practices may deny learners the valuable feedback they need to learn and improve. This scoping review systematically maps the evidence related to SPs' role as educators and identifies how SPs prepare for their role and feedback practices.

METHODS
The authors conducted a scoping review and included a group of international stakeholders with experience and expertise in SP methodology. Five online databases were systematically searched and ERIC, MedEdPortal and MedEdPublish were hand searched to identify relevant studies. Inclusion/exclusion criteria were developed. Data screening and subsequently data charting were performed in pairs. The results of data charting were thematically analysed including categories relating to the Association of SP Educators (ASPE) Standards of Best Practice (SOBP).

RESULTS
From 8179 articles identified for the title and abstract screening, 98 studies were included. Studies reported the benefit of SPs' authentic role portrayal and feedback interactions for learners and on the reported learning outcomes. Data was heterogeneous with a notable lack of consistency in the detail regarding the scenario formats for communication skills training interventions, SP characteristics, and approaches to training for feedback and role portrayal.

CONCLUSIONS
The published literature has considerable heterogeneity in reporting how SPs are prepared for role portrayal and feedback interactions. Additionally, our work has identified gaps in the implementation of the ASPE SOBP, which promotes effective SP-learner feedback interactions. Further research is required to identify effective applications of SP methodology to prepare SPs for their role as educators.


Previous studies suggested a significant interaction between criminal attitudes, associations with criminal friends, and criminal behaviour. The purpose of the current investigation was to provide the possible mediating role of associations with criminal friends between criminal attitudes, and criminal behaviour. Based on a sample of 133 violent offenders, the proposed mediation model tested was found to be a good fit of the observed data, with each of the respective fit indices exceeding the criteria for a good fitting model. Thus results suggest that the presence and influence of criminal friends has a significant mediating effect on the interaction between criminal attitudes and recidivistic behaviour. Further implications in relation to research and theory are discussed.


The seasonal assessment of trace metallic elements in Seybouse wadi waters and sediments is performed by principal component analysis (PCA). This wadi is the second of Algeria considering its length and vast basin, and opens into the coastline of Annaba in the Mediterranean sea. Monitoring mineral micropollutants showed that waters are primarily contaminated by aluminum Al, selenium Se, zinc Zn, copper Cu, chromium Cr, lead Pb, cadmium Cd and arsenic As, whereas sediments are essentially soiled by arsenic As, chromium Cr and nickel Ni. PCA shows a clear relation between the season and the type of metallic contamination, it also helps understanding its origins.


Plans were prepared by using same non-coplanar fields and physical parameters in 6MV-FFF and 10MV-FFF energies for fourteen lung Stereotactic Body Radio Therapy (SBRT) patients. In two plans which have different energies, critic organ doses, PTV doses, quality of plans (Gradient Index (GI), Homogeneity Index (HI), Conformity Index (CI)) and Monitor Unit (MU) values were compared. Quality controls were performed with 2D-Array Iba MatriXX Evolution® dosimetry system for each plans. As a results, plan with 6MV-FFF energy give better results in terms of CI and GI values. In this way, when more conformal dose distributions were provided, there was a rapid dose decrease at out of target volume. Lower MU values were obtained in plans which was prepared with 10MV-FFF energy. In plan with 10MV-FFF energy lower MU values are obtained. Lower values in heart and spinal cord doses are founded and better results are obtained in Body and Ipsa-Lung V5, V10, V20 values with 6MV-FFF energies. When differences were very small in volume which were taken low dose (V5), these differences increased in volume which were taken high dose (V20). High dose rates can be reached by both two unfiltered energies and can be used in lung SBRT.Plans were prepared by using same non-coplanar fields and physical parameters in 6MV-FFF and 10MV-FFF energies for fourteen lung Stereotactic Body Radio Therapy (SBRT) patients. In two plans which have different energies, critic organ doses, PTV doses, quality of plans (Gradient Index (GI), Homogeneity Index (HI), Conformity Index (CI)) and Monitor Unit (MU) values were compared. Quality controls were performed with 2D-Array Iba MatriXX Evolution® dosimetry system for each plans. As a results, plan with 6MV-FFF energy give better results in terms of CI and GI values. In this way, when more conformal dose distributions were provided, there was a rapid dose decrease at out of target volume. Lower MU values were obtained in plans which was prepared with 10MV-FFF energy. In plan with 10MV-FFF energy lower MU values are obtained. Lower values in heart and spinal cord doses are founded and better results are obtained in Body and Ipsa-Lung V5, V10, V20 values with 6MV-FFF energies. When differences were very sma...


The Mercia Mudstone Group comprises up to 1200m of predominantly red mudstones and siltstones laid down in rift-related basins during a period of regional subsidence. The mudstones are commonly dolomitic and contain horizons of sulphate and halide salts. Up to 150m of undifferentiated red mudstones of Norian and Rhaetian age (Late Triassic) were examined in coastal outcrops in Devon and Somerset, southwest Britain, and mineralogical and stable isotopic studies were carried out in order to identify any subtle changes in the succession. Gamma-ray measurements were taken at outcrop to provide correlation with published borehole logs in which the Mercia Mudstone Group has been subdivided on the basis of gamma-ray and sonic response. One of the borehole subdivisions was identified at outcrop within a sequence of otherwise undifferentiated red mudstones and was related to a transition in clay mineral assemblage and stable isotopic composition over 20 to 30 m of section. The red mudstones below this transition have a higher proportion of magnesian clay minerals and enriched carbonate oxygen isotope compositions, indicating deposition from Mg2+-rich marine-derived waters. Clay mineral assemblages in the succeeding red mudstones are dominated by illite, and oxygen isotopic compositions are relatively depleted, indicating a greater influence of K+-rich continental-derived waters.


&NA; Date Presented 3/30/2017 Care coordination is a national priority of health care reform. Effective communication is essential for coordinated care. This session will present the results of a qualitative study examining rehabilitation providers' interdisciplinary communication practices in SNF for hip fracture patients. Primary Author and Speaker: Brenda Fagan Contributing Authors: Natalie Leland, Jenny Martinez, Carin Wong


In service-oriented computing, Web service selection is an important part of Web service composition. QoS attributes are used to distinguish Web services with same functionality. QoS-aware Web service selection and composition have attracted much attention in the past years. The Web service composition is achieved by solving the Web service concretization problem. The literature has presented two Web service concretization approaches, namely, local optimization approach and global optimization approach. There are three types of algorithmic methods in the global optimization approaches: optimal methods, sub-optimal methods, and soft constraints-based methods. The bio-inspired algorithms are sub-optimal methods. The existing studies using bio-inspired algorithms apply different strategies to solve Web service concretization problems. This paper will firstly present a hierarchical taxonomy of Web service concretization approaches. Then we present a systematic review on the current research of Web service concretization based on bio-inspired algorithms. We will describe the applications of ant colony optimization algorithm, genetic algorithm, and particle swarm optimization algorithm to Web service concretization. In addition, this paper will compare ant colony optimization algorithm and genetic algorithm in details. By analyzing and comparing different applications of bio-inspired algorithms-Web service concretization, this paper also discusses the known outcomes and areas for potential future research.


For the versatile potential applications of colloidal crystals, precisely controlling their growth is required to achieve properties such as high crystallinity and large-area crystals. Because colloidal crystallization is a self-assembly process of dispersed particles in a solution, solution flow directly and markedly changes the behavior of particles. Thus, the effects of solution flow on the growth of colloidal crystals were investigated in the present study. We found three different effects of solution flow on the growth of colloidal crystals: to enlarging the first layer, facilitating the growth of superlattice structures, and forming a new circular packing structure. Specifically, in the single-component system, because the flow speed decreases closer to the bottom of the cell, the second and further layers dissolve owing to the flow speed (i.e., particles in the layer(s) are drawn into the environment), whereas the first layer remains undissolved at the appropriate flow speed. The dissolved particles are transported near the first layer, where they facilitate the growth of the first layer. In a binary system, when colloidal crystals with different particles neighboring each other, the flow dissolves the surface of each crystal, which forms a dense, melt-like phase between crystals, from which a superlattice structure such as AB2 grows. The flow often moves the second layer more than the first layer because the flow speed varies with the distance from the bottom. This causes the second layer to slide above the first layer of the neighboring crystals composed of different particle sizes, which transform from the initial face-centered cubic structure of the first layer into a circular pattern with strain. These findings contribute to establishing a sophisticated control method for growing colloidal crystals.


Abstract Conditions for deposition of tidally influenced facies are most commonly associated with transgression; however, tidal influence can also be observed in regressive deposits. Herein we present a regional study that correlates the Loyd and Sego sandstones across the Uinta–Piceance basins, an area rich in both outcrop and subsurface data. Variable energy conditions in these tidally modified deltas result in a complex arrangement of facies and environments, making it difficult to correlate sequence stratigraphic surfaces. We highlight the controls, including tectonics, eustasy, and sediment supply, on depositional environments and sand distribution in these regressive tidally modified deposits. Five environments of deposition (EOD) were identified from a combination of vertical and lateral facies trends and stratal geometries found in outcrops and core. EODs were assigned unique well-log signatures and identified, correlated, and mapped in subsurface logs and outcrop from the Uinta to the Piceance Basin. From a proximal to distal position along shorelines these EODs are: 1) coastal-plain channels and floodplains, 2) tidally influenced valley fills, 3) tidally modified deltas, 4) delta front, and 5) open marine. The regional distribution and stacking of these environments were used to identify ten flooding surfaces and map nine genetic sequences: two in the Loyd Sandstone, four in the lower Sego Sandstone, and three in the upper Sego Sandstone. The interplay of sediment supply, sea-level fluctuations, and active tectonics contribute to the distribution of environments of deposition and sequence stacking patterns. This study is the first to identify the Loyd Sandstone in outcrops along the Rangely Anticline. During deposition of the Loyd Sandstone, sediment supply from up-dip fluvial systems was high. The Loyd Sandstone is interpreted as being deposited in river-flood-dominated but tidally modified deltas that exhibit a generally lobate geometry. In contrast, the lower Sego Sandstone comprises tidally influenced deltas and valley fills, and forms regionally extensive shore-parallel sandstone belts. An increase in tidal energy prevalent in the lower Sego Sandstone is attributed to a combination of high sediment supply, slow relative base-level rise, and active faulting over the Laramide-age Douglas Creek Arch. This process formed complex coastline geometries, which likely amplified tides. The upper Sego Sandstone is interpreted to comprise aggradationally stacked sequences composed of tide- and wave-modified deltas. During the deposition of the upper Sego, sediment supply and accommodation were balanced, causing deltaic depocenters to remain stationary over time. Decreased tectonic activity in the upper Sego diminished the influence of tides on sedimentation. This study correlates the Loyd and Sego from the Uinta to the Piceance basins and sheds light on the applicability of this interval for use as analogs for tidally influenced systems in regressive sequences.


This manuscript describes a newly constructed airborne radar sounding dataset over the initiation zone of Greenlands largest outlet glacier, NEGIS. The survey area covers several hundread kilometers along strike, including the EastGRIP drill site, and with many transects perpendicular to ice flow. The authors describe the data collection and processing steps, resulting in the construction of numerous 'cleaned' radargram profiles for download by interested readers.


The vibration signal measured from the mechanical equipment is associated with the operation of key structure, such as the rolling bearing and gear. The effective signal processing method for early weak fault has attracted much attention and it is of vital importance in mechanical fault monitoring and diagnosis. The recently proposed atomic sparse decomposition algorithm is performed around overcomplete dictionary instead of the traditional signal analysis method using orthogonal basis operator. This algorithm has been proved to be effective in extracting useful components from complex signal by reducing influence of background noises. In this paper, an improved linear frequency-modulated (Ilfm) function as an atom is employed in the proposed enhanced orthogonal matching pursuit (EOMP) algorithm. Then, quantum genetic algorithm (QGA) with the OMP algorithm is integrated since the QGA can quickly obtain the global optimal solution of multiple parameters for rapidly and accurately extracting fault characteristic information from the vibration signal. The proposed method in this paper is superior to the traditional OMP algorithm in terms of accuracy and reducing the computation time through analyzing the simulation data and real world data. The experimental results based on the application of gear and bearing fault diagnosis indicate that it is more effective than traditional method in extracting fault characteristic information.


In natural language, several sequences of words are very frequent.
A classical language model, like n-gram, does not adequately take
into account such sequences, because it underestimates their
probabilities. A better approach consists in modelling word
sequences as if they were individual dictionary elements.
Sequences are considered as additional entries of the word
lexicon, on which language models are computed. In this paper,
we present an original method for automatically determining the
most important phrases in corpora. This method is based on
information theoretic criteria, which insure a high statistical
consistency, and on French grammatical classes which include
additional type of linguistic dependencies. In addition, the
perplexity is used in order to make the decision of selecting a
potential sequence more accurate. We propose also several
variants of language models with and without word sequences.
Among them, we present a model in which the trigger pairs are
more significant linguistically. The originality of this model,
compared with the commonly used trigger approaches, is the use
of word sequences to estimate the trigger pair without limiting
itself to single words. Experimental tests, in terms of perplexity
and recognition rate, are carried out on a vocabulary of 20000
words and a corpus of 43 million words. The use of word
sequences proposed by our algorithm reduces perplexity by more
than 16% compared to those, which are limited to single words.
The introduction of these word sequences in our dictation
machine improves the accuracy by approximately 15%.


Agenda 21 may be considered the most significant programme of action influencing environmental policy for the Australian development and construction industry. The industry has remained one of the most rapidly expanding sectors; yet, we have seen the gradual process of exhausting natural resources and irreversible environmental degradation. Even with the introduction of numerous new environmental policies, it remains questionable as to whether real improvements have occurred across the industry. Legislative mechanisms to direct on-site environmental management appear deficient; information flows between participants along the supply chain appear to impact upon environmental management performance; and industry fragmentation remains compounded by ill-defined external, non-contractual supply chain influences that directly impact on contractual systems. Limited research has considered construction supply chain theory and environmental management particularly in reference to policy. The literature highlighted a need to develop a supply chain model which seeks to integrate chain actors and government regulators through holistic information management. The model assumes that fundamental to industry change is statutory control to mandate construction environmental management plans. However, industry change and subsequent environmental management rely upon effective information dissemination. The next stage involves model refinement, investigating barriers and enablers to widespread diffusion of such an innovative integrated environmental management system.


This paper analyses the determinants of child anthropometrics using the data of a sample of children aged 0 to 36 months derived from the Cameroonian household survey (ECAMII). In particular, we assess the impact of household consumption on the nutritional status of children as measured by height-for-age (HAZ), weight-for- age (WAZ), and weight-for-height (WHZ) Z-scores, while controlling for other correlates. The methodology used in this study encompasses the ordinary least squares (OLS), 2stage least squares (2SLS), and the control function approach The endogeneity of household consumption is taken into consideration through four different categories of instruments, including land ownership, educational level, the formal sector employment, and the dependence ratio. The control function approach stands out as the most appropriate estimation strategy as it purges the structural parameters of potential econometric problems such as the endogeneity and heterogeneity of unobservable variables. Household consumption expenditure is significantly and positively associated with nutritional status of children (HAZ, WAZ, and WHZ), which suggest that policies aiming to ensure adequate resource availability to households should figure high on the agenda of decision-makers. The significance of this impact varies by gender of the household head. Male headed households income seem to play a more decisive role in financing child health than their female counterparts. This result could be considered as including the unobservable income contributions of their spouses, given that this effect is likely to be the result of joint financing when it comes to child health care.


Initially, the quinacrine staining technique for human sperm was studied and the use of both this stain and other acridine derivatives for the identification of the bovine Y sperm was investigated. During the experiments, human sperm counts were made using a haemocytometer, while bovine sperm were counted by using a haemocytometer and an electric counter. The two methods of counting bovine sperm were compared for accuracy and repeatability. Using the quinacrine staining technique for human Y sperm as monitor, several separation procedures for human sperm and for bovine sperm were examined. In the first separation process investigated, columns of bovine serum albumin were used to separate sperm on the basis of differential motility, but no significant increase in the percentage of Y sperm recovered was noted. Secondly, density gradient techniques were applied to separate human and bovine ejaculates into populations according to differences in specific gravity or sedimentation rates. Three gradient media (Colloidal silica, sucrose and Metrizamide) were used in these experiments, but in no case was a significant increase produced in the percentage of Y sperm recovered. The third method studied involved the use of a column of Sephadex G-50. The results of these experiments with human sperm were encouraging, as it was found that the numbers of Y sperm in the first fractions recovered after filtration were significantly lower than in the controls.


Choral singing is one of the most widespread musical activities, and choral conductors work in a variety of social settings that involve every imaginable type of choir and musical genre. The conductor role draws on a number of skills and competencies that are partly acquired through education but, equally importantly, through experience. Choral conductors shape their practice in highly individual fashions as amalgamations of background, formal education, career development and working situation. The present qualitative study seeks to uncover how choral conductor practices arise and unfold, by using Etienne Wenger's theory of communities of practice and situated learning as the key analytical framework. The study elucidates the choral conducting practice as an ongoing educational project and theorises the dimensions of variety in choral conductors' trajectories. The study situates the conducting practice in a Western choral tradition, based on interviews with a diverse sample of 20 conductors in Norway. The theoretical framework proved to be highly appropriate; however, applying it to the choral conducting practice requires the explicit positioning with regard to the academic debates on the theory's development following Wenger's original conceptualisation. The study therefore contributes to knowledge development in three ways – (1) by shedding new light on the theory, (2) by proposing a sub-structure to the main theory for its application to choral conducting and (3) by tracing some initial implications for choral conducting education. One of the key findings is that a conductor's background continues to impact competence and identity throughout a conductor's work-life, while practice seems to be predominant over formal education.


Recently, the Fourth Circuit concluded that an employee failed to engage in protected activity under Title VII's anti-retaliation provision's opposition clause when he reported to his employer that, on one occasion, a co-worker used an inflammatory racial slur in the employee's presence. In reaching the conclusion that the plaintiff's complaint did not constitute protected activity, the Fourth Circuit relied on dicta from the Supreme Court's opinion in Clark County School District v. Breeden, in which the Court assumed, without deciding, that to establish protected activity under the opposition clause of Title VII's anti-retaliation provision, a plaintiff must prove not only that she had a subjective, good-faith belief that the behavior she was opposing violated Title VII, but that she must also prove that her belief was objectively reasonable. The Fourth Circuit's opinion places employees in an unenviable position - they must either report a discriminatory remark to the employer and run the risk of being fired for doing so, or they can decide not to report the discriminatory remark, endure the work environment and the discriminatory feelings of co-workers, and then, after eventually enduring the environment to a point where it becomes intolerable, lose a subsequent lawsuit because by failing to report the discriminatory comment or comments, they would have provided the employer with a defense to the substantive discrimination claim. This Article will explore the opposition clause of Title VII's anti-retaliation provision, what constituted "protected activity" under that provision prior to Breeden, and how the Supreme Court's dicta in Breeden and the Fourth Circuit's recent opinion significantly undermine the goals of the anti-retaliation provision's opposition clause. The Article will then suggest that instead of requiring a plaintiff to prove both a subjective, good-faith belief that the practice she was opposing was unlawful and that her belief was objectively reasonable, an employee's subjective, good-faith belief that she experienced unlawful discrimination should be sufficient to gain Title VII protection. Although it is unlikely that this subjective-only approach will be adopted, this approach best promotes the purpose behind Title VII's anti-retaliation provision's opposition clause.


A 5 year-old spayed female Cavalier King Charles Spaniel was presented after a 3- to 5-day onset of severe respiratory distress. The dog also had a history of several episodes of syncope prior to presentation. A comprehensive diagnostic investigation revealed a midsystolic click sound on cardiac auscultation, signs of left sided cardiac enlargement in ECG and thoracic radiography, mitral valvular leaflet protrusion into left the atrium, decreased E-point-to septal separation (EPSS) and mitral regurgitated flow in echocardiography, all of which are characteristic signs of mitral valvular prolapse. After intensive care with diuretics [corrected] and a vasodilator with oxygen supplement, the condition of the dog was stabilized. The dog was then released and is being medicated with angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor with regular follow-up.


Conspicuous displays of color comprise an enormously diverse and functionally complex class of biological signals. Many of these displays are widely publicized as resulting from chemical colorants known as pigments, which act by selectively "absorbing" part of the light spectrum (Appendix 1). However, the full diversity of animal coloration is just as strongly influenced by optically active surface structures, which act by selectively "reflecting" light (i.e., scattering). In cases where light is scattered coherently, these structural colors produce displays that are often metallic, iridescent, or kaleidoscopic in appearance. In addition to structural coloration, mechanisms such as bioluminescence and fluorescence allow the actual creation of colored light, thereby transcending the simple reflectance of whatever ambient wavelengths are available. There is enormous variation among all of these classes of colorants, and most signals arise through the interaction of diverse suites of pigments and reflecting (structural) mechanisms. Despite this complexity, however, the field of behavioral ecology has been largely preoccupied with understanding how carotenoids—a single group of pigments—may broker the honest signaling of individual quality. This focus has proven highly productive in many respects, but it has also fostered a limited and overly simplistic view of how color signals really work. As we outline here, the complete emerging story of animal coloration is far more complex and interesting.


In Origin of the Work of Art, Heidegger presents an evocative claim about the way the Temple to Athena on the Acropolis, opens a world rich with meaning and resonant with significance that orients the Athenian people within reality thus allowing their relations to others and to nature to appear as meaningful and ultimately nourishing. In other words, the Temple, like all great works of art, opens a world that is also a home. This article reviews the import of Heidegger's reflection on monumental art, but we quickly turn to the principle objection to Heidegger's thought, which is that the entire venture by which an artistic, religious, or poetic event organizes a world for "a people" is fundamentally illegitimate because of the way it binds individuals to an identity that outgroups the "foreigners" that do not belong to this identity and thus marginalizes them.This objection is a central motivating force for liberalism, and since World War II, and particularly since the fall of the Soviet Union, has been almost hegemonic in many strands of philosophical thought and the globalized culture more widely. Thus, we see that the objection against Heidegger is primarily ethical and political and concerns not only his philosophy but the central and inter-related phenomenological ideas of the horizon, Lebenswelt, and the world—and thus the very relation of phenomenology itself—to contemporary ethical-political thinking. But because the objections are so strongly rooted in motivations, our phenomenological inquiry into the 'world' will have to be supplemented by recourse to hermeneutics.


The article is a clinical report of various techniques to enhance the aesthetic outcome of porcelain veneer restorations. Color and contour evaluation, increase in shade value, bleaching, and the use of temporary veneer restorations are presented and discussed. A case is used to illustrate the procedures. The learning objective of this article is to expand and update the knowledge of variations in current porcelain veneer restoration techniques.


Fully aromatic polyester thin film composite (TFC) nanofiltration (NF) membranes were successfully prepared on polysulfone support through interfacial polymerization (IP) of trimesoyl chloride (TMC) with bi-functional resorcinol (Res), tri-functional phloroglucinol (Phg) and their mixtures. The functionality of phenol greatly influenced the properties and performances of the membranes. Most notably, the active layer thickness (estimated from cross-sectional SEM images) and pore radius (from Hagen–Poiseuille pore flow model) decreased with an increasing amount of Phg. The best salt rejection and permeate flux were obtained with the membranes prepared from 2 : 1 (w/w) Phg : Res (TFC5) or pure Phg (TFC6). The membranes were negatively charged under operating pH conditions, as a result of which divalent anions were efficiently rejected whereas divalent cation rejection was considerably lower. TFC5 and TFC6 membranes showed promise for arsenic removal, giving 70–90% rejection of Na2HAsO4 depending on the ionic strength and pH of the feed water.


In April 2010, the U.S. Veterans Health Administration (VA) embarked on an ambitious three-year plan to build patient-centered medical homes in more than 900 primary care clinics across the nation. Its model organizes care around an interdisciplinary team of providers who work together to increase access and clinical effectiveness by identifying and removing barriers to high-quality care. To build the teams, the VA allocated more than $227 million to hire additional clinical staff and instituted a nationwide training program that is supplemented by provider participation in regional learning collaboratives. The program has in one clinic shortened the waiting time for appointments from as long as 90 days to same-day access, reduced the percentage of inappropriate emergency department visits from 52 percent to 12 percent, and in just three months reduced hemoglobin A1c scores by at least one point in 33 percent of patients with poorly controlled diabetes.


— Discharge results observed from the experimental channels for smooth and rough surfaces, along with data from a compound river channel are used in the Genetic Programming. Model equations are derived for prediction of discharge in compound channel for various types of channel surfaces. Five hydraulic parameters are used for developing the model equations. Models derived are tested and compared with other soft computing techniques. Evaluations of all the approaches are carried out using five performance parameters. Finally, the effect of parameters responsible for the flow behavior is shown through sensitivity analysis. GP is found to give the most promising results. This work aims to benefit the researchers engaged in modeling of discharge using machine learning techniques.


Modeling Maqam Relations with Self-Organizing Maps Nart B. Atalay Selcuk University Seyit Yore Selcuk University Abstract: Self-organizing maps (SOMs, Kohonen, 1982) have been extensively used as information processing models in music perception. Using a corpus that represents tonal regularities in Western music, Tillmann et.al (2000) developed a schema of Western tonal music. Krumhansl, et.al (2000) showed that melodic expectancy in Finnish music could be modeled by SOMs trained on samples of Finnish music. Recently, Schmuckler (2010) observed that a model of contour structure based on Fourier analysis could predict perceived melodic similarity. In this study, we investigated alternative SOM models of maqam music. Traditionally, maqams are defined by pitch structure and the structure of melodic contour, which are assumed to be independent. We trained SOMs using a representative corpus of Turkish maqam music. The SOMs were trained either with the pitch class distributions or the contour structure. Preliminary results showed that both types of information were useful to model the relations between maqams.


This article examines the notion of empowerment as it has been conceptualized, operationalized, and applied through various programs and projects by some donors funding women- and gender-related projects in the Middle East between 1998 and 2008. The main argument put forward is that many projects claiming empowerment as their objective showed a support for the concept that is stripped of its original political underpinnings. The article argues that this depoliticization of empowerment aid is not coincidental but is the outcome of a series of policy concerns shaping the donor agenda. These concerns include placating authoritarian regimes, promoting economic liberalization, and finding progovernment institutions capable of absorbing (and channeling) large amounts of aid in short periods of time. The outcome is a re-reinforcement of the status quo domestically, while giving the international audience the facade of progressive, gender-sensitive regimes.


From a broader policy point of view, introducing an optional regulatory tool with the aim of replacing national consumer law (itself based on EU legislation), even if only for cross‐border contracts at first puts the entire raison d'etre of the consumer law acquis into question. The harmonisation of EU consumer law has been one of the most successful flagships of European integration and has delivered tangible benefits and modern rights to consumers. Changing this regulatory policy by way of an experimental new tool which bears very clear and serious risks for consumers is undesirable. One of the many negative consequences of any such new policy approach is already apparent in relation to consumer contract rules for digital content products. As shown in point IV above, clarifying, updating and completing the existing acquis in order to provide solid rights for all European consumers in this area is both urgent and necessary. Yet the European Commission does not intend to put forward any "traditional" non‐optional legislative initiative besides the proposed CESL. It gives the impression to trust business will step in by applying the optional instrument to provide for the necessary protection of European consumers. A short and mid‐term strategy to promote cross‐border consumer trade, established and implemented in a fully transparent and democratic process with the stakeholders, is necessary. Such a strategy is fleshed out in this paper.


We examine a determinant of cultural persistence that has emerged from a class of models in evolutionary anthropology: the similarity of the environment across generations. Within these models, when the environment is more stable across generations, the traits that have evolved up to the previous generation are more likely to be suitable for the current generation. In equilibrium, a greater value is placed on tradition and there is greater cultural persistence. We test this hypothesis by measuring the variability of climatic measures across 20-year generations from 500 to 1900. Employing a variety of tests that use different samples and empirical strategies, we find that populations with ancestors who lived in environments with more cross-generational instability place less importance on maintaining tradition today and exhibit less cultural persistence.


Individuals with acute hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection characteristically mount a strong, multispecific cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) response that is effective in eradicating virus. In contrast, this response in chronic carriers is usually weak or undetectable. Since it is generally acknowledged that HBV pathogenesis is immune‐mediated, the occurrence of episodes of active liver disease in many carriers suggests that these individuals can mount active CTL responses to HBV. To see whether the detection of circulating CTLs is related to these flare episodes, we have determined the CTL precursor (CTLp) frequencies to HLA‐A2‐restricted viral peptides in seven patients over a 12–24‐month period of their disease. Limiting dilution analyses (LDA) were performed longitudinally to five epitopes comprising the viral capsid (HBc), envelope (HBs) and polymerase (pol) proteins. Assays were performed against a mixture of peptides, or against each individual peptide, to measure overall CTL activity and the multispecificity of the responses, respectively. Since two of the patients were treated with recombinant human interleukin‐12 (rHuIL‐12) at the time, with one individual achieving complete disease remission a year later after being treated with interferon‐α, we were also able to examine the effects of these cytokines on HBV cytotoxicity. Our results indicate that weak but detectable CTL responses do occur in chronic carriers which are generally associated with disease flares, although CTLps were also seen occasionally during minimal disease activity. The range of specificities varied between individuals and within each individual during the course of the disease. Finally, we also provide evidence that CTL reactivity is stimulated following treatment with certain cytokines, but is dependent on the time of administration.


Treatment of partially hepatectomized rats with the hepatocarcinogen N-hydroxy-2-acetylaminofluorene (N-hydroxy-AAF) inhibited the activities of nucleolar and nucleoplasmic RNA polymerase in hepatic nuclei. DEAE-Sephadex chromatography of nuclear RNA polymerases obtained from partially hepatectomized rats treated with N-hydroxy-AAF revealed stimulation in the activity of RNA polymerase I (nucleolar) and inhibition and an altered activity profile of RNA polymerase II (nucleoplasmic). No alterations were observed in the template activity of rat liver DNA from similarly treated animals. Assessment of the template activities of hepatic DNA after reaction with N-acetoxy-2-acetylaminofluorene (N-acetoxy-AAF) at 22° indicated that RNA polymerase II activity was affected to a greater degree than that of RNA polymerase I or Escherichia coli RNA polymerase, particularly at lower concentrations of carcinogens. In contrast, hepatic DNA that had reacted with N-acetoxy-AAF at 37° resulted in a 20-30-fold reduction in the concentration of activated carcinogen necessary to effect a 50% reduction in either rat liver or E. coli RNA polymerase activities. Whereas inhibition of nucleoplasmic RNA polymerase can account for the impairment in synthesis of extranucleolar species of RNA, it appears that inhibition of the synthesis of ribosomal RNA is not a direct result of reduction in nucleolar RNA polymerase or DNA template activity.


An all-digital frequency synthesizer for cellular transmitter is presented. Low phase-noise is achieved both in-band and out-of-band exploiting a 2-dimensional Vernier time-to-digital converter and a dither-less digitally controlled oscillator. These building blocks heavily rely on digital calibration techniques to precisely and efficiently implement two-point modulation and spur cancellation in the presence of implementation impairments. The presented prototype shows an in-band phase noise of -108 dBc/Hz, an out-of-band phase noise of -160 dBc/Hz @20 MHz and in-band fractional spurs below -50 dBc. These results are obtained for an output carrier of 1.8 GHz, a reference clock of 26 MHz, with a power consumption of 41.6 mW.


Word Version March 24, 2015 TO THE ADMINISTRATOR ADDRESSED: SUBJECT: Instructional Materials Ordering for the 2015−2016 School Year The educational materials
ordering system known as EMAT will close on April
3, 2015.  School districts and open-enrollment charter schools should place
any orders for instructional materials needed for the 2014−2015 school year on
or before April 3, 2015. EMAT will reopen for districts to order materials for
the 2015−2016 school year on April 13, 2015. Districts and open-enrollment
charter schools are required to certify annually to the State Board of
Education and the commissioner that, for each subject in the required
curriculum other than physical education, students have access to instructional
materials that cover all of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS).
Districts and open-enrollment charter schools will be unable to order 2015−2016
instructional materials through EMAT until the certification has been received
by the Texas Education Agency (TEA). The required Instructional Materials Allotment and TEKS
Certification is available in EMAT. Step by step instructions to access and
process the form are available on the EMAT system start page. The certification form must be
presented to the district's or open-enrollment charter's local board of
trustees or governing body. The superintendent, local board president, and
board secretary are required to sign the form before it is submitted to TEA.
The certification form can be scanned and emailed to the TEA instructional
materials mailbox at firstname.lastname@example.com . The 2015−2016 instructional
materials allotment (IMA) will be calculated and placed into each district and
open-enrollment charter school's EMAT account when appropriations have been
made by the 84 th  Texas Legislature. The following options will be
available to purchase instructional materials for the 2015−2016 school year
prior to that time: Any and all previous years' IMA carryover
funding may be used to purchase materials. Districts and open-enrollment charter schools
may spend local district funds and then be reimbursed through acceptable
disbursement requests when their 2015−2016 funding becomes available. The
district and open-enrollment charter schools will be responsible for any
purchases that cause them to exceed their available EMAT balance (as it will
stand after the 2015−2016 allotments are added) or that are not allowable IMA
expenses. Although the amount of each
district's IMA will be reflected in EMAT during the summer (as early as
possible), the funds will not actually be available until after September 1,
2015. A delayed payment option, authorized by the Texas Education Code,
§31.0215, allows districts to requisition and receive state-adopted
instructional materials before the IMA funds for those materials are available
if the publisher agrees to participate in the option. Information regarding
which publishers participate in the delayed payment option is available in the
EMAT system. The delayed payment option can be used for up to 80 percent of a
district's IMA in any given fiscal year. Once the 2015−2016 funds become
available, TEA will prioritize delayed payment requisitions over any
reimbursement or disbursement purchases made directly by a school district or
an open-enrollment charter school. Districts may order accessible
instructional materials (AIM) for students with print disabilities through the
EMAT system at any time after successful submission of their Instructional Materials Allotment and TEKS
Certification . Braille, large type, and audio instructional materials
remain the property of the State and are not paid for through a district's IMA. If you have any questions,
please contact the Instructional Materials and Educational Technology Division
at (512) 463-9601 or via email at email@example.com .  Sincerely, Monica G.
Martinez
Associate Commissioner
Standards and Programs


Two studies with a total or 180 undergraduates demonstrated that identical numerical probabilities of the occurrence of hazards are judged as higher when these involve potential catastrophic compared with noncatastrophic hazards. In the 1st study, 153 Ss were presented with 15 catastrophic and 15 noncatastrophic hazards in a questionnaire. Each hazard was given a numerical probability of 1 in 10, 1 in 1,000, or 1 in 100,000. Ss were asked to judge how large or small the probability was that a hazard would occur on a response scale of very large to very small. Numerical probabilities were rated as larger when they concerned hazards with catastrophic potential. Controlling for perceived benefits did not change the effect of catastrophe potential on Ss' responses. A 2nd study with 27 Ss presented a catastrophic vs a noncatastrophic scenario with the same set of probabilities as study 1. This study, which controlled for possible confounds (e.g., base rate), showed similar results. Results suggest that verbal interpretations of numerical probabilities of the occurrence of hazards include more than the probability itself. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved).


The structural gene for the porin of Haemophilus influenzae type b, designated outer membrane protein P2, was cloned, and the DNA sequence was determined. An oligonucleotide probe generated by reverse translation of N-terminal amino acid sequence data from the purified protein was used to screen genomic DNA. The probe detected a single EcoRI fragment of approximately 1,700 base pairs which was cloned to lambda gt11 and then into M13 and partially sequenced. The derived amino acid sequence indicated that we had cloned the N-terminal portion of the P2 gene. An overlapping approximately 1,600-base-pair PvuII genomic fragment was cloned into M13, and the sequence of the remainder of the P2 gene was determined. The gene for P2 was then reconstructed under the control of the T7 promoter and expressed in Escherichia coli. The N-terminal sequence of the purified protein corresponds to residues 21 through 34 of the derived amino acid sequence. Thus, the protein is synthesized with a 20-amino-acid leader peptide. The Mr of the processed protein is 37,782, in good agreement with the estimate of 37,000 from sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis.


Abstract A comparison is made of the divergent wind analyses of the National Meteorological Center (NMC) and those of the ECMWF/WMO dataset produced by the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). Using a reliability criterion based on the degree of correlation between month-long time series of daily values, the utility of the analyses is assessed over the globe on seven pressure levels from 100 to 1000 mb for all Januarys and Julys between 1980 and 1986. The results indicate that from January 1983 onward, the analyses for the winter hemisphere midlatitudes (≈20°–70°) and for the summer hemisphere midlatitudes (≈35°–70°) should be considered reliable except in midtropospheric levels where the divergence is weak. The tropical (between about 20° latitude of the winter hemisphere and 35° latitude of the summer hemisphere) analyses are especially poor and fall far short of satisfying the reliability criterion.


Some current utility models presume that people are concerned with their relative standing in a reference group. If this is true, do certain types care more about this than others? Using simple binary decisions and self-reported happiness, we investigate both the prevalence of "difference aversion" and whether happiness levels influence the taste for social comparisons. Our decision tasks distinguish between a person's desire to achieving the social optimum, equality or advantageous relative standing. Most people appear to disregard relative payoffs, instead typically making choices resulting in higher social payoffs. While we do not find a strong general correlation between happiness and concern for relative payoffs, we do observe that a willingness to lower another person's payoff below one's own (competitive preferences) seems correlated with unhappiness.


Dynamic development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) allowed fast acquisition of experimental data which determine structure and dynamics of macromolecules. Nevertheless, due to lack of appropriate computational methods, NMR spectra are still analyzed manually by researchers what takes weeks or years depending on protein complexity. Therefore automation of this process is extremely desired and can significantly reduce time of protein structure solving. In presented work, a new approach to automated three-dimensional protein NMR spectra analysis is presented. It is based on Histogram of Oriented Gradients and Bayesian Network which have not been ever applied in that context in the history of research in the area. Proposed method was evaluated using benchmark data which was established by manual labeling of 99 spectroscopic images taken from 6 different NMR experiments. Afterwards subsequent validation was made using spectra of upstream of N-ras protein. With the use of proposed method, a three-dimensional structure of mentioned protein was calculated. Comparison with reference structure from protein databank reveals no significant differences what has proven that proposed method can be used in practice in NMR laboratories.


Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) is a popular protocol for proactively establishing peer-to-peer links in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). Protocol 'hello' messages between neighbouring nodes establish link connections that are used to route information from a source via multiple relays to ultimately reach destinations that would not otherwise be directly connected to that source. The 'hello' messages are sent periodically with a random timing jitter in order to avoid collisions with messages of other neighbouring nodes such that the connection integrity of the MANET, and thus network availability, remain high. In this paper we explore the robustness of the OLSR protocol under unwanted interference that causes a denial of service. We simulate the denial of service with a statistical method, targeting the 'hello' messages with unwanted interference, and measure the mean time between failure and percent 'connectedness' of a network link. Our results show that the commercial off-the-shelf implementations of the OLSR protocol are not resilient to unwanted interference leading a MANET to potential denial or degradation if its routing protocol were targeted. We conclude that a randomized jitter in OLSR 'hello' message periodicity is an important element in avoiding this unwanted interference.


use of the cortical activity estimated from non invasive EEG recordings could be useful to detect mental states related to the imagination of limb movements. Estimation of cortical activity was performed on high resolution EEG data related to the imagination of limb movements gathered in five normal healthy subjects by using realistic head models. Cortical activity was estimated in Region of Interest associated with the subject's Brodmann areas by using depth-weighted minimum norm solutions. Comparisons between surface recorded EEG and the estimated cortical activity were performed. The estimated cortical activity related to the mental imagery of limbs in the five subjects is located mainly over the contralateral primary motor area. The unbalance between brain activity estimated in contralateral and ipsilateral motor cortical areas relative to the finger movement imagination is greater than those obtained in the scalp EEG recordings. Results suggest that the use of the estimated cortical activity for the motor imagery of upper limbs could be potentially superior with respect to the use of surface EEG recordings.


It is crucial to reduce uncertainties in our understanding of the climate impacts of short‐lived climate forcers, in the context that their emissions/concentrations are anticipated to decrease significantly in the coming decades worldwide. Using the Community Earth System Model (CESM1), we performed time‐slice experiments to investigate the effective radiative forcing (ERF) and climate respons to 1970–2010 changes in well‐mixed greenhouse gases (GHGs), anthropogenic aerosols, and tropospheric and stratospheric ozone. Once the present‐day climate has fully responded to 1970–2010 changes in all forcings, both the global mean temperature and precipitation responses are twice as large as the transient ones, with wet regions getting wetter and dry regions drier. The temperature response per unit ERF for short‐lived species varies considerably across many factors including forcing agents and the magnitudes and locations of emission changes. This suggests that the ERF should be used carefully to interpret the climate impacts of short‐lived climate forcers. Changes in both the mean and the probability distribution of global mean daily precipitation are driven mainly by GHG increases. However, changes in the frequency distributions of regional mean daily precipitation are more strongly influenced by changes in aerosols, rather than GHGs. This is particularly true over Asia and Europe where aerosol changes have significant impacts on the frequency of heavy‐to‐extreme precipitation. Our results may help guide more reliable near‐future climate projections and allow us to manage climate risks more effectively.


Magnetoencephalography (MEG) was used to study the neural mechanisms underlying face and gaze processing in ten normally developing boys aged between 8 and 11 years and 12 adult males. The participants performed two tasks in which they had to decide whether images presented sequentially in pairs, depicted the same person or the same motorbike. In the first task, the participants saw pictures of faces in which the eyes were either open or shut and pictures of motorbikes. In the second task, participants saw pairs of faces with gaze averted to the left or right. In children there was no evidence of the face sensitive, low amplitude short latency (30–60 ms) activity seen previously in adults. A strong, midline posterior response at approximately 100 ms was observed in children, which was earlier and somewhat stronger to faces than to motorbikes; in adults the signal at this latency was weak. A clear face sensitive response was seen in adults at 135 ms, predominantly over the right inferior occipito‐temporal regions. Although activity was observed in the children at the same latency, it was less prominent, not lateralized and was evoked similarly by faces and motorbikes. Averted gaze conditions evoked strong right‐lateralized activity at approximately 245 ms in children only. These findings indicate that even in middle childhood the neural mechanisms underlying face processing are less specialized than in adults, with greater early activation of posterior occipital cortices and less specific activation of ventral occipito‐temporal cortex.


Theory, simulation and experiment were used in this work to study the solubility and partitioning in polymer systems. The recently published SAFT-γ Mie equation of state was implemented into a stand-alone program together with all algorithms for parametrising new models and predicting phase equilibria. An analysis of the transferability of low-molecular weight Mie potential parameters for predicting the miscibility of polymer mixtures and partitioning of oligomers in polymer systems revealed the need for new models optimised for polymers. A systematic overview and analysis of available and typical experimental polymer data concluded that pure component polymer melt densities and cloud point temperatures (liquid–liquid equilibria) are the best and most practical choice for parametrising new SAFT-γ Mie models. New polymer models were developed for a range of pure polymers, several binary mixtures and one ternary polymer mixture. All models showed very good agreement with the experimental data included in the model development. Good agreement was found for predicted properties and conditions not included in the parametrising process. Coarse-grained (CG) force fields were developed with the help of the SAFT-γ Mie equation of state. Excellent agreement was found for the direct translation of Mie potentials to CG force fields for modelling properties of low-molecular weight compounds and densities of polymer melts. Coarse-grained models for molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of polymer phase equilibria are more challenging to develop due to greater computational resource requirements and less perfect agreement between SAFT-γ Mie and MD force fields. The challenges were demonstrated and discussed for a polystyrene solution and a binary mixture of polystyrene and polyisoprene. The synergistic power of SAFT-γ Mie and MD simulations was used for developing coarse grained models for describing the surface of a oligomer/polymer blend. Pure component parameters were optimised within SAFT-γ Mie. The SAFT-γ Mie CG model reproduced experimental partial density surface profiles as a function of blend composition without the need to rescale length scales. Oligomer surface enrichment, wetting transition and wetting layers were correctly predicted with a single model.


The Watershed Transform (W.T.) is a useful morphological tool that allows to distinguish complex structures that can not be processed with image processing conventional algoriths. The W.T. floods the image gradient topography from its local minima. These minima indicates the zones where the flooding starts in order to segment the image. The final result is a labeled image where each pixel belongs to a unique region. Gradient of textured images have irrelevant local minima with low contrast. This results in image sobresegmentation in most of the cases. To avoid sobresegmentation, unique object markers are defined. Markers definition, when objects have different texture, size or shape, requires complex solution highly dependent on each particular application. This paper propose an automatic marker definition method for the Watershed Transform using a Mandami fuzzy inference system. The proposed method is simple, robust and easily adaptable to diferent type of images.


Quantum technology has made tremendous strides over the past two decades with remarkable advances in materials engineering, circuit design, and dynamic operation. In particular, the integration of different quantum modules has benefited from hybrid quantum systems, which provide an important pathway for harnessing different natural advantages of complementary quantum systems and for engineering new functionalities. This review article focuses on the current frontiers with respect to utilizing magnons for novel quantum functionalities. Magnons are the fundamental excitations of magnetically ordered solid-state materials and provide great tunability and flexibility for interacting with various quantum modules for integration in diverse quantum systems. The concomitant-rich variety of physics and material selection enable exploration of novel quantum phenomena in materials science and engineering. In addition, the ease of generating strong coupling with other excitations makes hybrid magnonics a unique platform for quantum engineering. We start our discussion with circuit-based hybrid magnonic systems, which are coupled with microwave photons and acoustic phonons. Subsequently, we focus on the recent progress of magnon–magnon coupling within confined magnetic systems. Next, we highlight new opportunities for understanding the interactions between magnons and nitrogen-vacancy centers for quantum sensing and implementing quantum interconnects. Lastly, we focus on the spin excitations and magnon spectra of novel quantum materials investigated with advanced optical characterization.


Assembly processes play a big role in the current business context as global supply chains depend on many subcomponents to produce a single finished product. Previous studies have shown contrasting results regarding the effect that supply variability (the variability of feeding stations) has on the performance of assembly systems, as opposed to the variability of the station matching and assembling the components. This paper aims to close this gap by studying the behaviour of simple assembly systems with differing degrees of variability allocation among the stations through an experimental simulation study. Results suggest that a reduction in feeding station variability results in higher throughput, even in systems where the variability of one of the feeding stations increases while the other decreases. Furthermore, in scenarios with high total variance, the highest throughput is reached by transferring both variance and work from one of the feeding stations to any other station, whereas in low variance systems symmetrical work transfer to the feeding stations results in the highest throughput, as previously shown. Finally, reducing feeding station variability decreased the time spent in the assembly station (waiting time for component matching plus time for the assembly operation) only in experiments with high total variance.


Bioactive glass is an attractive scaffold material for use in filling bone defects because of its widely recognized ability to support the growth of bone cells and to bond firmly with hard and soft tissue. Use of bioactive glasses in the form of porous three-dimensional scaffolds for bone repair applications has been receiving considerable interest in recent years. However, bioactive glass scaffolds have been limited to the repair of low-load bone defects because of their low strength. In the present work, porous and strong bioactive glass scaffolds with an oriented microstructure were prepared by unidirectional freezing of camphene-based suspensions, and evaluated for their ability to regenerate bone in a non-healing rat calvarial defect model. Scaffolds of 13-93 glass (53SiO 2 , 6Na 2 O, 12K 2 O, 5MgO, 20CaO, 4P 2 O 5 ; wt%) with a porosity of 50% and columnar pores of diameter 50–150 μm showed a compressive strength of 47 ± 5 MPa and an elastic modulus of 11 ± 3 GPa. Total bone regeneration in the oriented scaffolds, 18% after implantation for 12 weeks to 24% after 24 weeks, was not significantly different from that in 13-93 scaffolds with a microstructure similar to that of dry human trabecular bone (control group). The results indicated that these oriented bioactive glass (13-93) scaffolds could potentially be used in the regeneration of loaded bone.


This paper deals with design and performance analysis of transmit beamformers for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems based on bandwidth-limited information that is fed back from the receiver to the transmitter. By casting the design of transmit beamforming based on limited-rate feedback as an equivalent sphere vector quantization (SVQ) problem, multiantenna beamformed transmissions through independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) Rayleigh fading channels are first considered. The rate-distortion function of the vector source is upper-bounded, and the operational rate-distortion performance achieved by the generalized Lloyd's algorithm is lower-bounded. Although different in nature, the two bounds yield asymptotically equivalent performance analysis results. The average signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) performance is also quantified. Finally, beamformer codebook designs are studied for correlated Rayleigh fading channels, and a low-complexity codebook design that achieves near-optimal performance is derived.


Summary A study has been made of the Los Angeles abrasion test in relation to the compressive strength of a wide variety of rocks being quarried to meet the growing demand for aggregates around Jeddah. It was found that the results of compressive strength as determined by the Schmidt rebound hammer could be used to predict the Los Angeles abrasion test results. The aggregates tested are of volcanic and plutonic origins and are basic to acidic in composition. A rock material strength map of the Jeddah area illustrates that most of the coarse-grained plutonic rocks are of low strength and the corresponding Los Angeles abrasion values for these rocks are high, rendering them unsuitable, — especially when the aggregate is to be used in road or building construction or is to be subjected to high wear.


Background Cultivating hospital environments that support older people's care is a national priority. Evidence on geriatric nursing practice environments, obtained from studies of registered nurses (RNs) in American teaching hospitals, may have limited applicability to Canada, where RNs and registered practical nurses (RPNs) care for older people in predominantly nonteaching hospitals. Purpose This study describes nurses' perceptions of the overall quality of care for older people and the geriatric nursing practice environment (geriatric resources, interprofessional collaboration, and organizational value of older people's care) and examines if these perceptions differ by professional designation and hospital teaching status. Methods A cross-sectional survey, using Dillman's tailored design, that included Geriatric Institutional Assessment Profile subscales, was completed by 2005 Ontario RNs and registered practical nurses to assess their perceptions of the quality of care and geriatric nursing practice environment. Results Scores on the Geriatric Institutional Assessment Profile subscales averaged slightly above the midpoint except for geriatric resources which was slightly below. Registered practical nurses rated the quality of care and geriatric nursing practice environment higher than RNs; no significant differences were found by hospital teaching status. Conclusions Nurses' perceptions of older people's care and the geriatric nursing practice environment differ by professional designation but not hospital teaching status. Teaching and nonteaching hospitals should both be targeted for geriatric nursing practice environment improvement initiatives.


Laboratory activated sludge reactors were operated on effluent wastewater from a kraft mill. Two of the three reactors were initially preceded with a "normal" size aerated selector, 2% of the total aerated volume, with unsatisfactory sludge volume index development. When the selectors were replaced by larger ones, 13% of the aerated volume, the sludge volume index could be kept below 50 ml/g for the selector processes while continuing to be higher and more unstable in the reference process.

A pilot plant, operated in situ on the same wastewater, showed a comparable improvement in sludge volume index when its selector, 7% of the total volume, was replaced by one that constituted 13% of the total volume, corresponding to a selector load of 3 g BOD / g VSS * d.

According to studies of the COD balance around one bench scale selector, the COD removal mechanism in the selector was respiration/assimilation rather than uptake/storage.


We consider the problem of estimating an unknown deterministic parameter vector in a linear model with a random model matrix, with known second-order statistics. We first seek the linear estimator that minimizes the worst-case mean-squared error (MSE) across all parameter vectors whose (possibly weighted) norm is bounded above. We show that the minimax MSE estimator can be found by solving a semidefinite programming problem and develop necessary and sufficient optimality conditions on the minimax MSE estimator. Using these conditions, we derive closed-form expressions for the minimax MSE estimator in some special cases. We then demonstrate, through examples, that the minimax MSE estimator can improve the performance over both a Baysian approach and a least-squares method. We then consider the case in which the norm of the parameter vector is also bounded below. Since the minimax MSE approach cannot account for a nonzero lower bound, we consider, in this case, a minimax regret method in which we seek the estimator that minimizes the worst-case difference between the MSE attainable using a linear estimator that does not know the parameter vector, and the optimal MSE attained using a linear estimator that knows the parameter vector. For analytical tractability, we restrict our attention to the scalar case and develop a closed-form expression for the minimax regret estimator.


Despite the fact that commercial sponsorship nowadays is a common phenomenon with salient effects on different aspects of developed societies at large (e.g. sports, the arts, the public sector, the media), academic research interest in this closely marketing‐related field seems to be rather low. Although there have been significant changes in marketing thinking during the 1990s, current research on sponsorship seems to be "stuck" in the more traditional, marketing‐mix management – and mass communicative effects‐based discourse. This paper aims at presenting a theoretical overview of how current sponsorship research could be developed further by applying the basic ideas and concepts provided by the interaction/network approach to the study of sponsorship‐related phenomena. Adopting an interaction/network perspective means that, instead of measuring the mass‐communicative effects on various audiences, the focus is on understanding the development of sponsorship relationships and networks, as well as on interpersonal communication processes going on between the sponsorship parties.


AccountR, Accounting Review AdmSciQua, Administrative Science Quarterly AeronautJ, Aeronautical Journal AfrAffairs, African Affairs AgrHist, Agricultural History AmAnthrop, American Anthropologist AmArchivis, American Archivist AmLib, American Libraries AmLit, American Literature AmNotes, American Notes and Queries AmScient, American Scientist AmStatAssnJ, American Statistical Association Journal AnnAmPoli, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science AnnAsAmG, Annals of the Association of American Geographers AutoEng, Automotive Engineering BioScience, BioScience Bklist, Booklist BMedLibA, Bulletin of the Medical Library Association BusHistR, Business History Review BusLibRev, Business Library Review International CanGeograp, Canadian Geographer CanHistR, Canadian Historical Review CanJPoli, Canadian Journal of Political Science ChinaQ, China Quarterly Choice, Choice


This thesis is about the relationship between exclusions from school and market forces in education. Through a series of interviews with groups of practitioners, conducted in a city authority between 1988 and 1996, the research looks at the effect of Conservative Government policy which introduced market force mechanisms into education via a programme of legislative reform; it focuses on the significant relationship between Conservative education policy and changes in the number and nature of school exclusions.

The early chapters develop the theoretical argument which the research presents: establishing policy provenance, identifYing themes dominant in policy discourse and describing the legislative mechanisms which carry policy. A short chapter drawing on broader based research, outlines the national picture. Chapter Five introduces the field research, stating the questions addressed by the thesis, explaining and justifYing the research methods employed. The remaining chapters present and discuss the evidence. Drawing on the concerted 'voices' of front line practitioners the evidence shows what is happening to school exclusions. Respondents reveal attitudes that underpin decisions determining the exclusion process, showing which pupils are more likely to be excluded. Relating the evidence to the discursive themes developed in the early chapters the thesis seeks to understand why there has been an increase in exclusions from school with the implementation of Conservative policy.

The themes of 'standards' 'choice' and 'diversity' in education, run as strands throughout the thesis. Issues which, when considered in relation to the empirical research which reports on the practical experience of children and young people excluded from school, raise searching questions about the efficacy of policy in the concluding chapter. The research engages both theoretically and empirically with the debate on whether the equitable distribution of educational resources and accessing of opportunities should be primarily desert-based or needs-based. It considers the meaning of school exclusion as a process of marginalisation, showing how disempowerment is invested in the implementation of policy.

The thesis shows the standard of education this group of pupils have received and the extent of educational autonomy that these pupils and their parents have been able to exercise, - commenting on the efficacy of the policy of a Government that held power for eighteen years and developed a programme of radical reform that continues to have a profound effect upon all state educated children.


Historically low temperatures have severely limited skeleton-breaking predation on the Antarctic shelf, facilitating the evolution of a benthic fauna poorly defended against durophagy. Now, rapid warming of the Southern Ocean is restructuring Antarctic marine ecosystems as conditions become favorable for range expansions. Populations of the lithodid crab Paralomis birsteini currently inhabit some areas of the continental slope off Antarctica. They could potentially expand along the slope and upward to the outer continental shelf, where temperatures are no longer prohibitively low. We identified two sites inhabited by different densities of lithodids in the slope environment along the western Antarctic Peninsula. Analysis of the gut contents of P. birsteini trapped on the slope revealed them to be opportunistic invertivores. The abundances of three commonly eaten, eurybathic taxa—ophiuroids, echinoids, and gastropods—were negatively associated with P. birsteini off Marguerite Bay, where lithodid densities averaged 4280 ind/km2 at depths of 1100–1499 m (range 3440–5010 ind/km2), but not off Anvers Island, where lithodid densities were lower, averaging 2060 ind/km2 at these depths (range 660–3270 ind/km2). Higher abundances of lithodids appear to exert a negative effect on invertebrate distribution on the slope. Lateral or vertical range expansions of P. birsteini at sufficient densities could substantially reduce populations of their benthic prey off Antarctica, potentially exacerbating the direct impacts of rising temperatures on the distribution and diversity of the contemporary shelf benthos.


Over time the impact of human interactions upon the natural environment has revealed changes to the condition and structure of the landscape. Practices which were once deemed to be suitable to natural conditions have since been recognised as having caused degradation to land, water, soils, and impacted upon floral and faunal biodiversity. In response to evidence of ecological declines, a range of institutional and management responses have been implemented, evolving to become a complex and fragmented environmental legal and management system. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of institutional responses as solutions to environmental problems. It did this through a case study exploration of the development, implementation, and administration of regulatory changes to the management of native vegetation in Queensland. These reforms were introduced to meet electoral commitments to address the high land clearing rates in light of scientific evidence of the association between this activity and the symptoms of degradation. Specifically, the study investigated whether these reforms would achieve their designed objectives without perverse impacts upon the ecological, economic, or social sustainability in semi-arid rangelands of south-west Queensland. The Pressure-State-Response (PSR)/ Driving Force-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) Models and the principles of Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) provided the foundation for the formation of the case study research questions to examine this complex real world environmental problem, and the attempts made to achieve its resolution. These questions focused upon each element of the Models. Hence, five research questions guided this investigation: 1. What is the condition of the environment in south-west Queensland? 2. What are the major pressures upon the condition of the environment? 3. How effectively have institutional responses to address the environmental problem been implemented? 4. What are the social, economic, and environmental impacts of the response in the case study region? 5. Was the response designed to maximise its potential effectiveness without unintended consequences (impacts)? Five research cycles were employed to gather and verify data required to explore these questions. Firstly, published knowledge, science, and best-practice approaches to decision making were highlighted through literature examinations. Focus groups then identified priority issues for further exploration. Interviews facilitated the in-depth investigation of problems and the testing of assumptions. Practical and on-ground conditions, practices, and issues were subsequently detailed in ethnographic studies, and emerging research and system changes reviews presented the context to the matters being explored. Through this process of data collection, triangulation, and verification, collectively, this case study investigation found that: • despite extensive research and investment into science and knowledge, environmental problems in the case study area persist, due to the combined impacts of natural and induced pressures; • the introduction of domestic grazing and permanent waters into an area ill-equipped to handle it led to the transformation of the semi-arid landscape, whilst the changes which have become apparent have been attempted to be resolved by the landholders who inherited them; • the on-ground responses to degradation are influenced by an evolving, multifaceted, and multi-jurisdictional framework of policies, laws, and strategies which comprise the environmental legal system, and are implemented at international, national, jurisdictional, local, and property levels; • Queensland's native vegetation framework is one of the more recent additions to this system, and whilst well intended, its design and implementation has been criticised as poorly reflecting best practice approaches; • regulatory deficiencies have the potential to limit the effectiveness of native vegetation reforms and the achievement of desired legislated objectives, and have the potential to compounding environmental, social, and economic problems in the case study region. However, it is argued that had a best practice approach to institutional response design and implementation been followed, this would have provided the opportunity to anticipate future problems, and allowed them to be addressed through the development and implementation of complementary tools and strategies. Furthermore, where institutional responses anticipate and address perversities as they occur, this can ensure that potential solutions to complex problems are capable of maximising the achievement of desired objectives without unacceptable impacts. Consequently, in order to identify and prevent the undesired outcomes predicted for the case study region, and to maximise the effectiveness of policy and institutional responses, problems need to be correctly defined, and appropriate responses generated. Hence, the thesis is: Where institutional reforms to solve environmental problems are not designed,implemented, and administered effectively, they will create negative ecological,economic, and social impacts. Policy design must be capable of conceptualizing and responding to possible and probable outcomes. However, and despite the knowledge, science, and information to do this already being available to guide decision making processes, the exploration of the case study demonstrated that institutional responses can still be potentially ineffective. This may be due to the complexity of issues needing to be considered, and the lack of guiding processes and tools to assist decision makers undertake this multidisciplinary activity. To resolve this dilemma, an adapted model has been created. The "Anticipatory, Sustainable, and Precautionary Institutional Response Evaluation (ASPIRE) Model" incorporates the findings and lessons from this study, and the elements which need to be considered in decision making. Through the utilisation of this model as a framework for examining complex problems, and developing and evaluating proposed solutions, the replication of the negative and perverse impacts of institutional responses which are anticipated for the case study can be prevented in the future. This will be achieved where the model is utilised by decision makers to guide the process for policy development and solution design in all sectors which attempt to address complex problems in multifaceted management environments.


During solar eclipses, the Moon's shadow causes a large reduction in atmospheric energy input, including not only the stratosphere but also the thermosphere and ionosphere. The eclipse shadow has a supersonic motion which is theoretically expected to generate atmospheric bow waves, similar to a fast‐moving river boat, with waves starting in the lower atmosphere and propagating into the ionosphere. However, previous geographically limited observations have had difficulty detecting these weak waves within the natural background atmospheric variability, and the existence of eclipse‐induced ionospheric waves and their evolution in a complex coupling system remain controversial. During the 21 August 2017 eclipse, high fidelity and wide coverage ionospheric observations provided for the first time an oversampled set of eclipse data, using a dense network of Global Navigation Satellite System receivers at ∼2,000 sites in North America. We show the first unambiguous evidence of ionospheric bow waves as electron content disturbances over central/eastern United States, with ∼1 h duration, 300–400 km wavelength and 280 m/s phase speed emanating from and tailing the totality region. We also identify large ionospheric perturbations moving at the supersonic speed of the maximum solar obscuration which are too fast to be associated with known gravity wave or large‐scale traveling ionospheric disturbance processes. This study reveals complex interconnections between the Sun, Moon, and Earth's neutral atmosphere and ionosphere and demonstrates persistent coupling processes between different components of the Earth's atmosphere, a topic of significant community interest.


Behavioral biases are action-trajectories that lie outside the space defined by neoclassical economic theory. Economists working in nudge theory, a subfield of behavioral economics, claim that it is possible to transform undefined trajectories to trajectories in neoclassical space without deforming the object that is traversing the undefined trajectory. Using basic theorems and intuition from graph theory, we demonstrate that nudge policy for integral (fully-connected) topologies of interaction may not be meaningful for nonintegral (not fully-connected) topologies of interaction, like social networks. We believe our results have major implications for the validity of nudge-type policies.


AIMS
While most patients with myocardial infarction (MI) have underlying coronary atherosclerosis, not all patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) develop MI. We sought to address the hypothesis that some of the genetic factors which establish atherosclerosis may be distinct from those that predispose to vulnerable plaques and thrombus formation.

METHODS AND RESULTS
We carried out a genome-wide association study for MI in the UK Biobank (n∼472 000), followed by a meta-analysis with summary statistics from the CARDIoGRAMplusC4D Consortium (n∼167 000). Multiple independent replication analyses and functional approaches were used to prioritize loci and evaluate positional candidate genes. Eight novel regions were identified for MI at the genome wide significance level, of which effect sizes at six loci were more robust for MI than for CAD without the presence of MI. Confirmatory evidence for association of a locus on chromosome 1p21.3 harbouring choline-like transporter 3 (SLC44A3) with MI in the context of CAD, but not with coronary atherosclerosis itself, was obtained in Biobank Japan (n∼165 000) and 16 independent angiography-based cohorts (n∼27 000). Follow-up analyses did not reveal association of the SLC44A3 locus with CAD risk factors, biomarkers of coagulation, other thrombotic diseases, or plasma levels of a broad array of metabolites, including choline, trimethylamine N-oxide, and betaine. However, aortic expression of SLC44A3 was increased in carriers of the MI risk allele at chromosome 1p21.3, increased in ischaemic (vs. non-diseased) coronary arteries, up-regulated in human aortic endothelial cells treated with interleukin-1β (vs. vehicle), and associated with smooth muscle cell migration in vitro.

CONCLUSIONS
A large-scale analysis comprising ∼831 000 subjects revealed novel genetic determinants of MI and implicated SLC44A3 in the pathophysiology of vulnerable plaques.


The cell membranes and cell junctions of the rectal chloride epithelia of the larval dragonfly Aeshna cyanea were examined in thin sections and by freeze-fracture. These epithelia function in active ion absorption and maintain a high concentration gradient between the haemolymph and the fresh-water environment. Freeze-fracturing reveals fine-structural differences in the intramembraneous particles of the luminal and contraluminal plasma membranes of these epithelia, reflecting the functional diversity of the two membranes, which are separated by the junctional complex. The particle frequency of the basolateral plasma membranes is reduced after transfer of the larvae into high concentrations of environmental salinity. The junctional complex is located in the apical region and composed of three types of cell junctions: the zonula adhaerens, seen in freeze-fracture as a nearly particle-free zone; the extended and highly convoluted pleated septate junction and randomly interspersed gap junctions of the inverted type. Gap junctions also occur between the basolateral plasma membranes. They provide short-cuts in the diffusion pathway for direct and rapid co-ordination of the interconnected cell processes. Colloidal and ionic lanthanum tracer solutions applied in vivo from the luminal side penetrate through the cuticle via epicuticular depressions, but invade only the apical portion of the junctional complex. This indicates that the pleated septate junction constitutes a structural control of the paracellular pathway across the chloride epithelia, which are devoid of tight junctions. The structure of the pleated septate junctions is interpreted as a device for the extension of the diffusion distance, which is inversely related to the net diffusion. A conservative estimate of the total length of the junction, and the number and extension of septa reveals that the paracellular route exceeds the transcellular route by a factor of 50.


The regulation of cytosolic potassium is a convergent factor in cell death programs of many mammalian cell types including central nervous system neurons. Physiological levels of potassium concentrations can suppress the activation of critical caspases and nucleases necessary for cell death. Under physiological conditions, several ion channels and exchangers sustain intracellular potassium levels. Conversely, tightly regulated molecular pathways facilitate the depletion of intracellular potassium after injury to very low concentrations, enabling cell death mechanisms to proceed. Several research groups have shown that preventing the loss of intracellular potassium after injury through various approaches can increase the survivability of several cell types. In neurons, the main regulator of intracellular potassium after injury is the delayed rectifier potassium channel Kv2.1. Strategies aimed to ameliorate Kv2.1-dependent neuronal cell death have been investigated over the past several years. We have come to understand that lethal oxidative damage set forth unique, zinc-dependent phosphorylation of Kv2.1, leading to enhanced membrane channel insertion and elevated potassium efflux currents. Critical to this pathway is the protein-protein interaction between Kv2.1 and the cell surface soluble NSF attachment protein receptor (SNARE) syntaxin 1A (syntaxin). Interrupting this interaction has been shown to improve neuronal survival in vitro. In this dissertation, I report several studies that further clarify the molecular interactions between Kv2.1 and syntaxin, and provide the first in vivo evidence that disrupting the Kv2.1-syntaxin binding is a viable neuroprotective strategy. We explored several approaches using both peptide-based and synthetic small molecules as the protective agent. To cap off these findings, I provide preliminary data that leverages the hepatitis virus protein NS5A to suppress Kv2.1-dependent cell death in ischemic stroke. We intend for the work presented here to serve as the basis to further unravel the role of Kv2.1 in other neurodegenerative conditions and eventually make the translational leap to improve clinical treatments.


In this work we addresses the issue of deafness and hidden terminal problem in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) using directional antennas. To minimize these effects, we propose a MAC protocol for directional Antennas (MDA) which employs a novel Enhanced Directional Network Allocation Vector (EDNAV) scheme and, and an efficient technique of Diametrically Opposite Directions (DOD) transmission of RTS and CTS. We compare MDA with IEEE 802.11 and two recently proposed directional MAC schemes and results show that MDA outperforms these protocols in the majority of scenarios investigated. We also point out that the performance does depend on the network topology and the traffic pattern.


As one of the most promising Distributed Generation (DG) sources, wind power technology has been widely developed in recent years. Doubly fed induction generator (DFIG) is currently employed as one of the most common topologies for wind turbine generators (WTGs). This generator operates as a synchronous/asynchronous hybrid generators. Therefore, it is necessary to power engineers find understand the characteristics of the DFIG better. This paper presents an analytical method for analysis of large-disturbance stability of DFIG. The proposed method is based on the concepts of stable and unstable electrical-mechanical equilibrium points, the electrical-mechanical torque versus rotor speed and Critical fault clearance time of DFIG. The results of analysis specify the effective parameters on the large-disturbance stability of DFIG too. By using this method ones can reduce the simulation efforts necessary to assess the large-disturbance stability of DFIG. Index Terms -Doubly fed induction generator (DFIG), Large-disturbance stability, Critical fault clearance time.


Mechanical properties of silicon are of high interest to the microelectromechanical systems community as it is the most frequently used structural material. Compression tests on 8 μm diameter silicon pillars were performed under a micro-Raman setup. The uniaxial stress in the micropillars was derived from a load cell mounted on a microindenter and from the Raman peak shift. Stress measurements from the load cell and from the micro-Raman spectrum are in excellent agreement. The average compressive failure strength measured in the middle of the micropillars is 5.1 GPa. Transmission electron microscopy investigation of compressed micropillars showed cracks at the pillar surface or in the core. A correlation between crack formation and dislocation activity was observed. The authors strongly believe that the combination of nanoindentation and micro-Raman spectroscopy allowed detection of cracks prior to failure of the micropillar, which also allowed an estimation of the in-plane stress in the vicinity of the crack tip.


Large amounts of personal data are generated through young people's engagements with mobile media, with these data increasingly (re)used by advertisers, content developers and other third parties to profile, predict and position individuals. This has prompted growing concerns over the ability of mobile media users to develop informed stances towards how and why their data is being used, i.e. to build 'conscious' and/or 'resistant' forms of 'data agency'. This paper explores ways of developing the critical consciousness and resistant practices of young mobile media users towards personal data. Drawing on research with 27 young people (aged 13–17 years), the paper describes efforts to make representations of third party use of personal data openly available as a basis from which to develop data-savvy tactics and strategies. The results of these interventions – while only partially successful – offer valuable insights into the technical, social and cultural issues that shape young people's engagement with personal data. The paper concludes by considering how concerns over data agency might be better aligned with the realities of young people's mobile media use.


Over the last decade, new opportunities enabled by digital technologies have become the center of attention of companies. In fact, not only digital technologies transform businesses, but they also influence the way people interact and work. Organizations need to adapt to the rapid advances in the digital environment and shift their focus from digital transformation to digital maturity. However, it is still not clear which are the main strategic factors affecting the level of digital maturity of businesses. Based on a survey of 153 digital leaders, this study identifies key strategic factors of digital transformation and examines the relationship between them and digital maturity. Our results indicate that digital maturity is higher when a digital vision is shared by top management, where the vision is adequately communicated within the company, with employees requiring training in digital skills.


The transport sector accounts for one fourth of Sweden's total energy use and causes one third of the national emissions of greenhouse gases. At the same time, the Swedish government has set high goals: the vehicle fleet shall be fossil-independent until 2020 and Sweden shall not have any net emissions of greenhouse gases 2050. Quick and powerful actions are needed in order to reach these goals. Electrification has been pointed out as a key factor for success. In order for electric vehicles to be able to challenge and replace the fossil system, investment in new infrastructure is necessary. Fast chargers, where passenger cars can recharge their battery in short time, are already in place in many parts of Sweden. Electric roads is a term for new and innovative technologies where vehicles are charged from the road while they are driving.But which technique is the most strategic stepping stone on the way to sustainability? This study has its ground in the framework for strategic sustainable development which can be used to plan for sustainability in complex systems. At its core it uses backcasting from four basic sustainability principles. This work uses a combination of different methods to investigate the environmental impact and costs of fast charging infrastructure and electric roads from a strategic life cycle perspective. That information is then used to build models to take a closer look at how emissions to the environment change per invested Swedish crown, also dependent on how the used electricity is produced.The results show a large potential to decrease the environmental impact for both techniques, but it is strongly dependent on the electricity mix. Furthermore, this work shows that is is important to include the environmental impact of the infrastructure itself in life cycle analyses, because it can has a significant share in the total emissions. Finally, it is pointed out that it often not is the case that the emissions of carbon dioxide equivalents are the most important impact. It is therefore crucial to use a more holistic perspective in life cycle impact assessments. This work has identified a number of factors with large relevance but also large uncertainty. It is therefore recommended to fill the identified knowledge gaps and to expand the presented models with more factors and more alternative techniques, to get a more detailed picture of which solution is the best stepping stone on Sweden's way to a sustainable future.


Abstract. The analysis of time-clustering behaviour of the sub-crustal seismicity (depth larger than 60 km) of the Vrancea region has been performed. The time span of the analyzed catalogue is from 1978 to 2008, and only the events with a magnitude of Mw ≥ 3 have been considered. The analysis, carried out on the full and aftershock-depleted catalogues, was performed using the Allan Factor (AF) that allows the identificatiion and quantification of correlated temporal structures in temporal point processes. Our results, whose significance was analysed by means of two methods of generation of surrogate series, reveal the presence of time-clustering behaviour in the temporal distribution of seismicity data of the full catalogue. The analysis performed on the aftershock-depleted catalogue indicates that the time-clustering is associated mainly to the aftershocks generated by the two largest events occurred on 30 August 1986 (Mw = 7.1) and 30 May 1990 (Mw = 6.9).