OVER ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH, CONFEDERATE general Nathan Bedford Forrest continues to haunt America. The general's exploits in the Civil War and his attitude towards African Americans throughout his life have combined to form a malleable and controversial image that underscores contrasting aspects of southern history. During the Civil War, the uneducated general directed a number of limited victories over superior, if poorly led, Union forces. Although he may not have lost a major battle, most historians agree that his handful of successes failed to have any real impact on the future of the Confederacy. "He was," as Charles Royster has noted, "a minor player in some major battles and a major player in minor battles."(1) Nevertheless, after the war Forrest's exploits soon attained mythic stature, and admirers of the general proclaimed him one of the primary heroes of the Confederate military effort. After his death in 1877, issues of race and racism tended to frame conflicting interpretations of Forrest's image in popular historical memory. A notorious slave trader and an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan, Nathan Bedford Forrest became an obvious target for African American anger and contempt, especially in the late twentieth century. White Americans, however, have not always conformed to any one particular view. In the 1870s many white northerners, appalled by the general's involvement in the massacre of black troops at Fort Pillow during the Civil War, viewed Forrest as the most reprehensible former Confederate. But white southerners were also divided in their attitudes toward the general. To many, he was the quintessential Confederate hero, whose rough-hewn, unschooled martial style reflected the virtues of the southern "plain folk"; others, in contrast, found him an ambiguous figure at best, preferring instead the stoicism of Robert E. Lee over the more unruly Forrest. Around the turn of the twentieth century, a trend toward national reconciliation began to modify Forrest's image: even as he gained more widespread legitimacy as an honorable soldier in service to his nation, his image became increasingly polarized in racial terms. In 1905 Memphis--the city most associated with Forrest--honored the general with a bronze equestrian statue in his memory. The celebration surrounding the monument's dedication revealed that most white Americans accepted some version of the iconic image of Forrest as heroic warrior. By the 1980s, however, the statue became a focal point for attacks by African Americans incensed by a public memorial to a notorious Klansman. The ensuing debate, fueled in part by the general's prominent role in Ken Burns's widely watched documentary on the Civil War, made Forrest a highly visible figure in popular historical culture. At the end of the twentieth century, as in the 1870s, the struggle over Forrest's image took place on a national scale, but the debate in Memphis, with its large black population, provides a useful case study of the ways that Americans have continued to redefine the popular memory of one of its most infamous Civil War commanders. The image of Nathan Bedford Forrest still touches upon concerns vital to Americans, both black and white, while the transformations in public perceptions of the general reflect larger shifts in southern views on history, identity, masculinity, and race. Forrest had been born into poverty in rural Tennessee in 1821, and after establishing himself as a successful planter in Mississippi, he moved to Memphis and eventually became one of the largest slave traders on the Mississippi River. With its direct river route into the slave markets of the deep South, Memphis was perfectly situated for the commerce in slaves, and by the late 1850s Forrest claimed to be worth over a million dollars. The slave trade, with its attendant wealth and business connections, also afforded Forrest a great deal of influence in Memphis, where he was elected a town alderman in 1858. …


The effects of neonatal infection, perinatal malnutrition, and crowding on the metabolism of brain catecholamine were studied in specific pathogen-free mice. Metabolic turnover of catecholamine was determined by measuring the incorporation of precursor tyrosine-14C into brain tissue, catabolic activity of norepinephrine-3H at various times after intracisternal injection, and tissue levels of dopamine and norepinephrine. The rate of tyrosine incorporation was decreased by neonatal infection but was increased by perinatal malnutrition and crowding. There was no difference in catabolic activity of norepinephrine between infected, crowded, and control groups. In the malnourished group, however, the total radioactivity from norepinephrine was significantly higher than in the control group ½ and 2 hr after injection. The brain contents of dopamine and norepinephrine were depressed in the malnourished group. There was no significant difference in catecholamine levels between infected, crowded, and control groups. In the malnourished group, treatment of the mothers with growth hormone prevented almost completely weight loss during lactation, and also resulted in higher fetal weight. Hormone treatment restored to normal the levels of brain catecholamine and the enzymatic activity of brain tyrosine hydroxylase in progeny of malnourished mothers.


I-shaped flexural members can be subjected to significant lateral forces or torsion combined with major axis bending. This condition commonly occurs with bridge girders that are skewed or curved in plan. Within an elastic range of loading, vector addition of minor axis bending stress or warping normal stress with major axis bending normal stresses results in a linearly varying stress gradient across the flange, which causes a reduction in major axis bending moment at which a slender flange plate buckles. Under combined major axis bending and lateral flange bending, yielding initiates from one edge of the flange and propagates towards the web, which results in the need for compactness and strength definitions that consider the interaction of major-axis and lateral-flange moments. This paper presents a definition of flange strength and slenderness based upon theoretical and analytical models that consider the effect of lateral bending or warping stresses. The effect of stress gradient on elastic flange buckling is quantified using a Galerkin series solution that considers the full width of the flange plate with a variable rotational stiffness along the center of the plate. The coupling of stress gradient and centerline rotation resistance is demonstrated and it is shown that the full flange width must be considered for evaluating buckling capacity of flanges in which the stress varies across the plate. The solution is then used to define the transition point between non-compact and slender flanges subjected to stress gradient. The strength of compact flanges is defined by considering the portion of the plastic flange that is available to resist the vertical moment. Finite element analyses are used to demonstrate the accuracy and applicability of the solution.


The protease enzyme from Cucurbita maxima peel was isolated and purified and its application in removing blood stain was studied. The optimum pH and temperature for this newly isolated protease was found to be 7.0 and 40°C respectively. The molecular weight of isolated protease was determined by SDS PAGE and it was found to be 31 KD. This new protease enzyme was applied to blood stained cloth to evaluate the stain removing capacity of the enzyme in the presence and absence of detergents. From the results, it is confirmed that the newly isolated protease removes stain completely with detergents and even in the absence of detergents. This study confirms the application of Cucurbita maxima peel protease in removing blood stains


A composable infrastructure is defined as resources, such as compute, storage, accelerators and networking, that are shared in a pool and that can be grouped in various configurations to meet application requirements. This freedom to 'mix and match' resources dynamically allows for experimentation early in the design cycle, prior to the final architectural design or hardware implementation of a system. We describe the design of an enterprise composable infrastructure that we have implemented and evaluate the impact of resource dis-aggregation on representative deep learning benchmarks.


Th e purpose of this paper is twofold: to introduce the harmonised EU-wide rules regulating transfer of insurance portfolios, and to show on the examples of several EU countries that despite a common EU framework, the national rules of the Member States diff er substantially. As a result companies face problems with recognition of the transfers and incompatible requirements of various state supervisors. In certain cases they even have to go through two parallel processes in the country of transferor and transferee due to diff erent interpretation of the EU and national legislation. However, majority, although not all, of the issues can be eliminated by increased harmonisation and more uniform implementation of the existing EU rules. Th e study is carried out utilizing a combination of legal dogmatic, comparative law method and empirical analyses. Its results can be practically applied by those interested in accomplishing insurance portfolio transfers or as a starting point for further theoretical discussion.


Background: Faced with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the development of COVID-19 vaccines has been progressing at an unprecedented rate. This study aimed to evaluate the acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination in China and give suggestions for vaccination strategies and immunization programs accordingly. Methods: In March 2020, an anonymous cross-sectional survey was conducted online among Chinese adults. The questionnaire collected socio-demographic characteristics, risk perception, the impact of COVID-19, attitudes, acceptance and attribute preferences of vaccines against COVID-19 during the pandemic. Multivariate logistic regression was performed to identify the influencing factors of vaccination acceptance. Results: Of the 2058 participants surveyed, 1879 (91.3%) stated that they would accept COVID-19 vaccination after the vaccine becomes available, among whom 980 (52.2%) wanted to get vaccinated as soon as possible, while others (47.8%) would delay the vaccination until the vaccine's safety was confirmed. Participants preferred a routine immunization schedule (49.4%) to emergency vaccination (9.0%) or either of them (41.6%). Logistic regression showed that being male, being married, perceiving a high risk of infection, being vaccinated against influenza in the past season, believing in the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccination or valuing doctor's recommendations could increase the probability of accepting COVID-19 vaccination as soon as possible, while having confirmed or suspected cases in local areas, valuing vaccination convenience or vaccine price in decision-making could hinder participants from immediate vaccination. Conclusion: During the pandemic period, a strong demand for and high acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination has been shown among the Chinese population, while concerns about vaccine safety may hinder the promotion of vaccine uptake. To expand vaccination coverage, immunization programs should be designed to remove barriers in terms of vaccine price and vaccination convenience, and health education and communication from authoritative sources are important ways to alleviate public concerns about vaccine safety.


A new strain of the bacterium Paenibacillus contributes to postinfectious hydrocephalus in Ugandan infants. Hiding in plain sight Hydrocephalus is a serious brain disorder in children and the most common indication for pediatric neurosurgery. Worldwide, the most frequent cause of hydrocephalus is previous infection such as neonatal sepsis. Such postinfectious hydrocephalus (PIH) occurs principally in low- and middle-income countries, and the pathogens responsible remain uncharacterized. Paulson et al. used pan-microbial analysis of CSF samples from infants with PIH in Uganda to identify the bacteria, viruses, fungi, or parasites potentially contributing to PIH. They found a new strain of the bacterium Paenibacillus as well as frequent coinfection with cytomegalovirus as contributors to PIH in this infant cohort. Postinfectious hydrocephalus (PIH), which often follows neonatal sepsis, is the most common cause of pediatric hydrocephalus worldwide, yet the microbial pathogens underlying this disease remain to be elucidated. Characterization of the microbial agents causing PIH would enable a shift from surgical palliation of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) accumulation to prevention of the disease. Here, we examined blood and CSF samples collected from 100 consecutive infant cases of PIH and control cases comprising infants with non-postinfectious hydrocephalus in Uganda. Genomic sequencing of samples was undertaken to test for bacterial, fungal, and parasitic DNA; DNA and RNA sequencing was used to identify viruses; and bacterial culture recovery was used to identify potential causative organisms. We found that infection with the bacterium Paenibacillus, together with frequent cytomegalovirus (CMV) coinfection, was associated with PIH in our infant cohort. Assembly of the genome of a facultative anaerobic bacterial isolate recovered from cultures of CSF samples from PIH cases identified a strain of Paenibacillus thiaminolyticus. This strain, designated Mbale, was lethal when injected into mice in contrast to the benign reference Paenibacillus strain. These findings show that an unbiased pan-microbial approach enabled characterization of Paenibacillus in CSF samples from PIH cases, and point toward a pathway of more optimal treatment and prevention for PIH and other proximate neonatal infections.


Satisfaction with working time gains increasing importance in the context of changing sphere of work, spread-out of flexible forms of employment, digitalisation and telework in the recent times of the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper focuses on the factors associated with satisfaction with working time in European countries before the pandemic based on data from the European Quality of Life Survey (2016). The study serves as a basis for further comparison of the trend in working time satisfaction in the pre-pandemic period across Europe and the recent period of increasing flexibilisation of work, digitalisation and spread-out of distant employment. For this purpose, descriptive statistical analyses and two-level random intercept model for binary responses are applied. The results show that women report higher satisfaction with working time compared to men. Satisfaction significantly increases after the age of 40. The number of children and the presence of children below the age of 6 in the household are negatively associated with satisfaction with working time. Satisfaction is positively associated with income and education. Structural conditions, such as economic development measured by gross domestic product (GDP), influence Europeans' working time satisfaction. In the Balkan countries, satisfaction with working time is the lowest, while in the North-Western societies the highest percentage of workers are satisfied with working time before the Covid-19 pandemic.


Collagen is a well known protein component that has the capacity to mineralize in a variety of vertebrate tissues. In its mineralized form, collagen potentially can be utilized as a biomimetic material for a variety of applications, including, for example, the augmentation and repair of damaged, congenitally defective, diseased or otherwise impaired calcified tissues such as bone and cartilage. In order to effect an optimal response in this regard, the manner in which collagen becomes mineralized is critically important to understand. This paper provides details concerning collagen–mineral interaction and its implications with respect to designing biomimetic mineralizing collagen that will be functionally competent in its biological, chemical, and biomechanical properties.


The luminescent properties of Eu2+, Mn2+co-doped Ca2SiO3Cl2 phosphors synthesized by the sol-gel method were investigated. The crystal structure, pattern and luminescence properties were characterized by the X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and photoluminescence (PL) testing. The result showed that pure Ca2SiO3Cl2 was prepared at 570°C for 8h in the active carbon weak reducing atmosphere. The phosphor particles showed Eu2+ by the excitation spectrum located at 365nm found that spectra with an emission peak located at a 446nm and the other emission spectrum was dominated by the green peak located at 497nm. Due to the Eu2+ center transfer energy to the Mn2+ center that there be an emission spectrum peak located at 580nm. Three of emission spectrum peaks stacking to white light.


Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) systems have been becoming an important element in traffic measurement ever since port-based classification was deemed no longer appropriate, due to protocol tunneling and misuses of well-defined ports. Current DPI systems express application signatures using regular expressions and it is usual to perform pattern matching through the use of Finite Automaton (FA). Although DPI systems are essentially more accurate, they are also resource-intensive and do not scale well with link speeds. Looking to this area of interest, this paper proposes a novel Deterministic Finite Automaton, called Ranged Compressed Deterministic Finite Automaton (RCDFA), that compresses transitions without additional memory lookups. Experimental results show that RCDFA yields space savings of 97% over the original DFA and up to 93% better compression when compared to the DFA's state-of-the-art compression techniques.


Grounded in self-determination theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 1985), this two-phase research examines the reliability and validity of the Volunteer Motivation Scale with Chinese volunteers (VMS-C) and its relationship with the supportive work climate and intention to continue being a volunteer. In Study 1, the initial item pool of the VMS-C with 18 items measuring six motivation types was administrated to Chinese volunteers (N = 362). Factor analysis led to a five-factor model with 15 items. This model was cross-validated using confirmatory factor analysis. The five factors were intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, introjected regulation, external regulation and amotivation. In Study 2, the relationships between different types of motivation (i.e. autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, amotivation) and two variables of interests, namely, supportive work climate and intention to stay, were investigated (N = 228). It was found that autonomous motivation (i.e. intrinsic motivation, identified regulation) were positively related to both supportive work climate and intention to stay. Controlled motivation (i.e. introjected regulation, external regulation) and amotivation were negatively associated with the two variables. The current findings are consistent with SDT. More studies guided by the theory in the volunteering area are recommended.


Tiny computers located in end-user premises are becoming popular as local servers for Internet of Things (IoT) and Fog computing services. These highly distributed servers that can host and distribute content and applications in a peer-to-peer (P2P) fashion are known as nano data centers (nDCs). Despite the growing popularity of nano servers, their energy consumption is not well-investigated. To study energy consumption of nDCs, we propose and use flow-based and time-based energy consumption models for shared and unshared network equipment, respectively. To apply and validate these models, a set of measurements and experiments are performed to compare energy consumption of a service provided by nDCs and centralized data centers (DCs). A number of findings emerge from our study, including the factors in the system design that allow nDCs to consume less energy than its centralized counterpart. These include the type of access network attached to nano servers and nano server's time utilization (the ratio of the idle time to active time). Additionally, the type of applications running on nDCs and factors such as number of downloads, number of updates, and amount of preloaded copies of data influence the energy cost. Our results reveal that number of hops between a user and content has little impact on the total energy consumption compared to the above-mentioned factors. We show that nano servers in Fog computing can complement centralized DCs to serve certain applications, mostly IoT applications for which the source of data is in end-user premises, and lead to energy saving if the applications (or a part of them) are off-loadable from centralized DCs and run on nDCs.


The identification and study of long-lived mutant animals has provided valuable insights into the mechanisms that limit the life-span of organisms. Findings with the gene SIR2suggest that the rate of aging can be regulated under certain conditions. Indeed, increased expression of SIR2 lengthens life-span by acting on biological processes that promote survival under conditions of scarcity. In addition, studies of mutant strains ofCaenorhabditis elegans, in particular daf-2,clk-1, and isp-1 mutants, suggest that the biology of reactive oxygen species in the mitochondria and elsewhere might be the main determinant of life-span in this organism. Thus, the aging process may be more specific than previously anticipated on evolutionary grounds.


It is known that separation axioms are playing a vital role in study of topological spaces. In this paper, Some Separation axioms have been studied in context of fuzzy soft bitopological spaces. we introduce and study the notions of pairwise fuzzy soft $T_{i}$-spaces; $(i =0, 1, 2)$. This study focuses on question: If a fuzzy soft bitopological space $(X, E, \tau_{1}, \tau_{2})$ is a pairwise fuzzy soft $T_{i}$-space; $(i =0, 1, 2)$, what can be said about the following situations: (1) both $(X, E, \tau_{1})$ and $(X, E, \tau_{2})$ are fuzzy soft $T_{i}$-spaces; $(i =0, 1, 2)$, (2) $(X, E,\tau_{12})$ is a supra fuzzy soft $T_{i}$-space; $(i =0, 1, 2)$. (3) fuzzy soft subspaces $(X, E,\tau_{1_{Y}}, \tau_{2_{Y}})$ are fuzzy soft $T_{i}$-spaces for $ \phi \neq Y \subset X$; $(i =0, 1, 2)$. Finally, characterizations theorem is proved for pairwise fuzzy soft Hausdorff space.


Estimating Long-Term Consequences of Teenage Childbearing: An Examination of the Siblings Approach In the study of the consequences of teenage motherhood, the siblings approach has been proposed as a strategy to control for unobserved family background. Revisiting this literature, my contribution in adopting the siblings approach lies in controlling for heterogeneity within the family by using pre-motherhood school performance, a characteristic that differs across sisters. My findings confirm the presumption that within-family heterogeneity can result in biased sibling estimates. Estimating Intergenerational Schooling Effects: A Comparison of Methods Recent studies that aim to estimate the causal link between the education of parents and their children provide evidence that is far from conclusive. This paper explores why. There are a number of possible explanations. One is that these studies rely on different data sources, gathered in different countries at different times. Another one is that these studies use different identification strategies. Three identification strategies are currently in use: identical twins; adoptees; and instrumental variables. In this paper we apply each of these three strategies to one particular Swedish data set, with the purpose to explain the disparate evidence in the recent literature. Our findings indicate that the estimated impact of parental education on that of their child in Sweden does depend on identification, which suggests that country and cohort differences do not lie behind the observed disparities. Intergenerational Mobility and Assortative Mating: Effects of An Educational Reform This paper provides new evidence on the role of the educational system for intergenerational mobility. I evaluate an educational reform, implemented in Sweden in the 1950s, which postponed ability tracking and extended compulsory education from seven to nine years. The reform may have influenced intergenerational mobility by several different mechanisms, both directly and indirectly through changing the degree of assortative mating. My results indicate that the reform indeed resulted in a sizeable increase in intergenerational income mobility, and in a lower educational association between children and parents. The reform also contributed to reducing the association in education between an individual's partner and parents, which I interpret as an effect operating through reform effects on mating patterns. Is the Gender Gap in School Performance Affected by the Sex of the Teacher? Girls outperform boys in school. We investigate whether the gender performance gap can be attributed to the fact that the teacher profession is female dominated, that is, is there a causal effect on student outcomes from having a same-sex teacher? Exploring the fact that teacher turnover and student mobility give rise to variation in teacher's gender within student and subject, we estimate the effect on student outcomes of changing to a teacher of the same sex. We find no strong support for our initial hypothesis that a same-sex teacher improves student outcomes.


Consultants can and do play many different roles for the client that hires them. In many cases, it is not as simple as it may appear in terms of laying out the problem and then letting the consultant you have contracted with either solve it for you or present you with options from which to pick the best solution. The retaining of outside expertise is usually done for one or more of the following reasons (by no means inclusive): Lack of "in-house" manpower or time to deliver a product. The need for an external expert to bring credibility to the project;. Getting someone outside your organization to deliver unpopular or bad news. Genuine interest in the independent findings and recommendations of the consultant. Whatever the motivation for seeking the advise of outside counsel, be sure you are prepared for the answer they may give to the question you have asked.


Single non-heme Fe(II) ions present as structural metals in several metal organic frameworks (e.g. MIL-100, MIL-101, MIL-808) are identified by Kohn-Sham density functional calculations as promising catalysts for C-H bond activation, with energetic barriers as low as 40 kJ mol-1 for ethane and 60 kJ mol-1 for methane following oxidative activation of iron. Through consideration of the full reaction profile leading to the corresponding alcohols ethanol and methanol, we have identified key changes in the chemical composition of the node that would modulate catalytic activity. The thermal and chemical stability of these MOFs together with the scalability of their syntheses make them attractive catalysts for the selective low temperature conversion of light alkanes to higher-value oxygenates.


In a 3 x 3 Latin square design experiment, urinary excretions of purine derivatives (allantoin N, Uric acid N, Xanthine + Hypoxanthine N) were measured and used to estimate microbial N yield in 9 sheep fed roughage- based diet supplemented with 0, 150 and 300g DM grass silage respectively.  Daily urinary excretions of allantoin N, uric acid N, xanthine + hypoxanthine were 3.66, 3.77,4.51, 0.95,1.18,1.24; 1.01,1.21 and 1.34 mmol d- 1 for sheep fed roughage-based diet and supplemented with 0,150 and 300g DM silage respectively. Allantoin N, Uric acid N and Xanthine + Hypoxanthine N excretion increased significantly (P<0.01) with increasing amount of silage. Dry matter intake which increased with level of supplementation significantly (P< 0.01) influenced estimated microbial protein yield, which ranged from 4.86 to 6.14g N d- 1 . The efficiency of conversion of dietary N into microbial N which ranged from 48.17 to 57.22 g N/100g DN was highly significant (P<0.01) as the level of supplementation increased. Microbial N yield per kg of OM fermented (gN/kg DOMR) increased linearly. The results indicate that the amount of microbial N biomass made available to the host animal per unit of feed fermented could be influenced by feed type, level of intake and size of animal. The results also showed that allantoin constituted the highest proportion of purine derivatives excreted. Key Words: Microbial protein, purines, sheep, roughage, silage


This paper proposes a method for optimizing rectilinear tasks on a 3 degrees-of-freedom (DoF) modular serial metamorphic manipulator. The overall experimental process was designed in order for theoretical assumptions and previous experimental results, regarding the characteristics of a class of reconfigurable manipulators to be verified. The optimization procedure undergoes two stages. In each stage, the tasks are initially simulated and the optimal solutions obtained are afterward evaluated in the manipulator. Optimal task placement in the configuration space of the reference anatomy is concerned in the first optimization stage. Two different kinematic manipulability measures are utilized to form the objective function of the genetic algorithm (GA) used. Determination of the optimal anatomy for each task execution is concerned in the second stage. All feasible anatomies are exhaustively evaluated, and the anatomy with minimum execution time achieved in simulation is considered as optimal. The simulated tasks are executed for the reference and the optimal anatomy extracted. Overall task execution time reduction is measured. For tasks executed, Tool Center Point (TCP) position and velocity are obtained from navigation equations using measurements from an inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensor. In order to obtain more accurate solutions from position and velocity equations, a Kalman filter (KF) algorithm is implemented. Finally, conclusions are made based on the results of each task execution. Overall the metamorphic manipulator can achieve higher kinematic performance and minimize task execution time for the optimal anatomy calculated. Optimal task placement for the reference anatomy also reduces the task execution time.


The process of emission of electromagnetic radiation does not occur instantaneously but it is "formed" over a finite time known as radiation formation time. In the ultrarelativistic regime, the corresponding (longitudinal) formation length is given by the formation time times the speed of light and controls several features of radiation. Here, we elucidate the importance of the transverse formation length (TFL) by investigating nonlinear Compton scattering by an electron counterpropagating with respect to a flying focus laser beam. The TFL is related to the transverse size of the radiation formation "volume" and, unlike the longitudinal formation length, has a quantum origin. Being the TFL typically of the order of the Compton wavelength, where any laser field can be assumed to be approximately uniform, related quantum interference effects can be ignored. However, we show analytically that if the focus in a flying focus beam with $n_L\gg 1$ cycles moves at the speed of light and backwards with respect to the beam propagation direction, the effects of the TFL undergo a large enhancement proportional to $n_L$ and can substantially alter the emission spectrum for feasible flying focus pulses.


We reexamine the recent controversy over the possibility that mass enterprise privatization raised mortality in post-communist countries. Our analysis demonstrates that the country-level correlation of privatization and mortality reported in previous research is not robust to recomputing the mass-privatization measure, to assuming a short lag for economic policies to affect mortality, and to controlling for country-specific mortality trends. Our analysis of data from Russian regions also finds no evidence that privatization increased mortality. Finally, we show that there is little support for the assertion that privatization could have influenced mortality by increasing unemployment.


Published to wide controversy, it became the source (acknowledged or unacknowledged) of much of our thinking about race relations and was for many a catalyst for the civil rights movement. It remains the most courageous, insightful, and eloquent critique of the pre-1960s South. "I began to see racism and its rituals of segregation as a symptom of a grave illness," Smith wrote. "When people think more of their skin color than of their souls, something has happened to them." Today, readers are rediscovering in Smith's writings a forceful analysis of the dynamics of racism, as well as her prophetic understanding of the connections between racial and sexual oppression.


The aim of the article is to compare three (re)creative activities within one interdisciplinary project: a public space (14 Henrietta St. Museum in Dublin), poetry (Paula Meehan's cycle of sonnets in Museum of 2019) and photography (Dragana Jurišić's photos in the same book). They are all examined in the light of the current housing crisis in Ireland, which followed the collapse of the Celtic Tiger in 2008. The Museum project not only comments on the crisis and the changing social relations in Ireland but also challenges the perception of history and private/public memory. In the article, the components of the project are situated against biographical and historical backgrounds, and within the framework of new museology, memory studies, and the functions of photography and poetry.


Playfulness is an important, but often neglected, design quality for interactive products. This paper presents a first step towards a validated questionnaire called PLEXQ, which measures 17 different facets of playful user experiences. We describe the development and validation of the questionnaire, from the generation of 231 items, to the current questionnaire consisting of 17 constructs of playfulness, each measured through three items. Using PLEXQ we discuss the nature of playfulness by looking at the role of age, gender, and product type in one's proclivity to experience playfulness differently. Finally, we reveal a four-factor structure of playfulness and discuss the implications for further theory development.


Diagnosis of tuberculosis in a field setting depends on the quality of specimens submitted for smear- microscopy. Macroscopic assessment (sputum or saliva) of the specimen for suitability for further examination is common practice in routine care. We examined whether macroscopic assessment could correctly identify sputum specimens based on four published algorithms using microscopic features in the setting of active case finding in a community survey. The study included 901 randomly selected adults who reported cough for 3 weeks or more in the national tuberculosis prevalence survey in Bangladesh. A single specimen of each was assessed with microscopy and microscopy (Gram-stain) to classify it as either sputum or saliva. The primary outcome was the agreement between the two assessment methods (Kappa statistic) From 901 specimens, 561 (62%) were macroscopically classified as saliva and 340 (38%) as sputum. From these, 888 Gram-stained slides could be examined for microscopic features. The agreement between the macroscopic assessment with any of the four microscopy algorithms for sputum was very poor (all Kappa's below 0.1). While macroscopic assessment of submitted specimens might be of value in routine care, it is not warranted in a setting of active case finding in a community survey. Submitting a specimen in the first place should be the primary goal in this setting.


The concept of 21 Century Learning is to make graduates having competencies in mastering the skill of thinking, complex communication and solving a problem which is very important according to the current global dynamics need. The 21 Century Learning is a new paradigm of learning being applied in Indonesia. This method has been adopted by several countries in the world such as Hong Kong, Switzerland, and the U.S. Based on several observations, the application of the 21 Century Learning in Indonesia especially Surakarta still has to be enhanced. Therefore, the objective of this research was to analyze the implementation and assessment of 21 century learning which had been done by Physics teachers of the senior high school in Surakarta. The subjects were 13 Physics teachers from 7 senior high school in Surakarta. The techniques of collecting data were interview, documentation and using a questionnaire. This research used concurrent triangulation strategy and descriptive analysis method. The implementation of the learning process and assessment of critical thinking and problem solving skills towards students in senior high school had attempted to build critical thinking and problem solving skill through various activities such as discussion, doing some experiment, observation through many literatures and having an oral presentation. However, the assessment instruments which had been used had not reflected the efforts to assess critical thinking and problem solving skill, so that they had not described these abilities. The assessment of thinking skills was limited to students' cognitive abilities, that was proved by the results of exam questions documentation where each item was at the level of C3 Blooms' Taxonomy in majority. The implementation and assessment of critical thinking and problem solving skills require the precise instruments in order to measure a students' ability. Teachers need some training to develop critical thinking and problem solving instruments. Keywords—21 century learning; critical thinking skills; problem solving skills


There is more to Adam Smith than The Wealth of Nations, a book on the workings of the economy. He wrote an important treatise on moral philosophy, published an exceptionally well-informed history of astronomy, and was an author who cared about literary style and how to communicate both orally and in print. 'Life and times' provides a biographical outline from his birth in Kirkcaldy in 1723 to his student years at Glasgow University and Balliol College, Oxford, and his return to Glasgow University as the Professor of Logic in 1751. It also describes the sort of society in which Smith lived, with the backdrop of the 1707 Treaty of the Union and the Scottish Enlightenment.


Abstract We demonstrate in this study that natural green rust nanoparticles and their synthetic analogs can be complex polycrystalline phases composed of crystallites only a few nanometers in size, and they often include nanometer-sized regions of amorphous material. The natural green rusts are Zn-bearing pseudo-hexagonal platelets previously identified by us in the contaminated mine drainage of the former Ronneburg uranium mine in Germany (Johnson et al. 2014). We also identified Ni- and Cubearing green rust platelets in the sediment underlying the drainage outflow 20 m downstream, and, using dark-field transmission electron microscopy (DF-TEM), found that these natural green rusts are not usually structurally coherent single crystals. Synthetic sulfate green rusts are also polycrystalline and composed of crystallites of only a few nanometers in size, though different synthesis conditions produced different patterns of polycrystallinity. While pseudo-hexagonal platelets are the typical morphology of green rust, we also synthesized green rust nanorods, which have not previously been reported. In addition to the known characteristics of green rusts (including a very large aspect ratio and surface area to volume ratio, and the redox properties allowed by the structural mixture of Fe2+ and Fe3+), these polycrystalline platelets exhibit a high abundance of defect sites and likely a rough surface topography. The combination of these characteristics has important implications for the reactivity of green rust with biogeochemical interfaces in natural and anthropogenic systems.


As the demand for assisted reproductive techniques in humans increases, so does the demand for the oocytes and sperm that are essential for these techniques. Human sperm banks play a key role in assisted human reproduction, as a reservoir of sperm from the semen of donors and as an option for genetic preservation for some patients. There are different techniques that can be used to store human sperm. This paper will provide an overview of the available techniques of human sperm preservation.


Many national governing bodies are experiencing difficulties retaining referees at the grass roots level, especially young referees (Warner, Tingle & Kellett, 2013). Abuse and aggression from players and spectators are the most commonly given reasons for referees leaving. Without consideration of the development, nurturing and management needs of the referee there could be a decline in the participation numbers within the sport. This research paper used an online questionnaire to explore the levels of abuse that rugby union referees are subjected to in the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset and Hampshire. The results indicated that referees from various levels on the Rugby Football Union's referee continuum were subjected to a significant level of abuse. The sources of this abuse ranged from the players, coaches and spectators. Furthermore, the research illustrates that the referees believe that there has been an erosion of the 'core values' of rugby union specifically indicating a decline in the enjoyment factor of officiating within rugby union and its effect on the retention of referees.


Three mammalian ADAMTS enzymes, ADAMTS-1, -4 and -5, are known to cleave aggrecan at certain glutamyl bonds and are considered to be largely responsible for cartilage aggrecan catabolism observed during the development of arthritis. We have previously reported that certain catechins, polyphenolic compounds found in highest concentration in green tea (Camellia sinensis), are capable of inhibiting cartilage aggrecan breakdown in an in vitro model of cartilage degradation. We have now cloned and expressed recombinant human ADAMTS-1, -4 and -5 and report here that the catechin gallate esters found in green tea potently inhibit the aggrecan-degrading activity of these enzymes, with submicromolar IC50 values. Moreover, the concentration needed for total inhibition of these members of the ADAMTS group is approximately two orders of magnitude lower than that which is needed to partially inhibit collagenase or ADAM-10 activity. Catechin gallate esters therefore provide selective inhibition of certain members of the ADAMTS group of enzymes and could constitute an important nutritional aid in the prevention of arthritis as well as being part of an effective therapy in the treatment of joint disease and other pathologies involving the action of these enzymes.


AbStr ACt. Recent work on the potential economic value of improved coastal ocean observing capabilities suggests that aggregate values of better ocean observing system information for all US waters could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars per year. This aggregate value derives from specific information delivered to particular user groups in particular regions; the scale of benefits depends on the economic importance of the user sectors and on their ability to make use of better information about local and regional marine conditions. As we continue to refine these estimates of economic value, information on benefits is becoming sufficiently specific to be useful in the observing system design process. This paper describes a National Oceanographic Partnership Program study on the economics of ocean observing system information, presents a framework for incorporating economic information into observing system design, and sketches the beginning of an application of this process to the northeast region of the United States.


Abstract Equatorial volcanic eruptions are known to impact the atmospheric circulation on seasonal time scales through a strengthening of the stratospheric zonal winds followed by dynamic ocean-atmosphere coupling. This emerges as the positive phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation in the first 5 years after an eruption. In the North Atlantic, other modes of atmospheric circulation contribute to the climate variability but their response to volcanic eruptions has been less studied. We address this by retrieving the stable water isotopic fingerprint of the four major atmospheric circulation modes over the North Atlantic (Atlantic Ridge, Scandinavian Blocking and the negative and positive phases of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO − and NAO+)) by using monthly precipitation data from Global Network of Isotopes in Precipitation (GNIP) and 500 mb geo-potential height from the 20th Century Reanalysis. The simulated stable isotopic pattern of each atmospheric circulation mode is further used to assess the retrieved pattern. We test if changes in the atmospheric circulation as well as moisture source conditions as a result of volcanic eruptions can be identified by analyzing the winter climate response after both equatorial and high-latitude North Hemispheric volcanic eruptions in data, reanalysis and simulations. We report of an NAO + mode in the first two years after equatorial eruptions followed by NAO − in year 3 due to a decrease in the meridional temperature gradient as a result of volcanic surface cooling. This emerges in both GNIP data as well as reanalysis. Although the detected response is stronger after equatorial eruptions compared to high latitude eruptions, our results show that the response after high latitude eruptions tend to emerge as NAO − in year 2 followed by NAO + in year 3–4.


Identifying a source of spontaneous subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) or intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) in patients with negative results on cranial angiographic imaging can be a diagnostic challenge. The authors present the case of a 14-month-old girl who presented with lethargy and spontaneous SAH and IVH, and later became acutely paraplegic. Except for the SAH and IVH, findings on neuroimages of the brain were normal. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed an intramedullary thoracolumbar spinal cord hemorrhage that was found to be associated with arterialized veins intraoperatively. Catheter-based diagnostic angiography identified a spinal perimedullary macroarteriovenous fistula (macro-AVF) that was completely embolized with Onyx, negating the need for further surgical intervention. The authors believe this to be the first reported case of a thoracolumbar perimedullary macro-AVF presenting with SAH and IVH. In addition, descriptions of Onyx embolization of a spinal AVF in the literature are rare, especially in pediatric patients.


The article provides commentary on Wong et al.'s investigation of the relationship between schizotypal traits, social mistrust and aggression, mental and physical health outcomes across three waves of data collection commencing in April 2020. The researchers aimed to consider the nature of the relationship between these variables and the stability of these relationships as coronavirus (Covid-19) restrictions fluctuated over time. Their results suggested that loneliness reflects a hub which links the trait variables of schizotypal and social mistrust to aggression and mental and physical health symptoms. Their network did not vary by demographic factors nor wave of data collection, suggesting that stable individual differences were driving results. Their results propose that interventions which increase social connection could provide positive health benefits as well as decreasing aggression (via reductions in social mistrust). Their data contributes to understanding about how schizotypal traits link to outcomes under conditions of social stress.


This thesis examines the sedimentological processes, internal architecture and depositional evolution of the deep marine Tithonian succession of the Angel Formation located within the Dampier Sub-basin on the North West Shelf of Australia. It is a mature basin containing 149 hydrocarbon fields with combined reserves of 34tcf of gas, 1037mmbbls of condensate and 633mmbbls of oil within fluviodeltaic and deep marine reservoirs. The rationale of this research is to improve current understanding of the highly prosperous deep marine reservoirs whose architecture is primarily of sub-seismic resolution. It was accomplished using lithofacies classifications and the establishment of an architectural scheme comprising seven orders in combination with wireline, biostratigraphic and seismic reflection data and applicable analogues. Eleven cores totalling 547 metres were analysed to identify sedimentological processes responsible for the deposition of the Angel Formation and to develop lithofacies schemes. The depositional lithofacies scheme contains six types formed through the deposition of quasi-steady high density turbidity flows and debrites. The lithofacies scheme for deformed sediments contains five types generated by post-depositional sediment movement, including soft sediment slumping and subsurface remobilization. These core-scale lithofacies represent first and second order architectural elements. Third order architectural elements are represented by seven lithofacies associations. They are grouped into two categories dependent on their association with channelisation. Channelised lithofacies associations include crevasse splays, channel axis units, channel margin units, and channel abandonment units. Unchannelised lithofacies associations include proximal sand-dominated frontal splays, distal silt-dominated frontal splays and splay abandonment units. Third order lithofacies associations are grouped into fourth and fifth order architectural elements that represent the development of composite channel-splay or sheet complexes. A fourth order architectural element is represented by a single storey migrational channel feature. Five differing fifth order architectural elements are separated into two complexes dependent on their degree of internal channelisation. A composite channel-splay complex comprises stacked fourth order channel forms that develop through multiple episodes of infilling and reincision. They are overlain by retrogradational splay or lateral channel margin deposits dependant on their place within a sixth order setting. A composite sheet complex comprises solely of stacked progradational and retrogradational splays. Sixth order architectural elements group multiple fifth order complexes amalgamated through autocyclic processes into allocyclic successions bound by sequence boundaries and maximum flood events. Sixth order progradational models are related to early and late lowstand time. Stacked fifth order architectures deposited during sixth order progradational cycles display high net to gross sandstones, low channel sinuousity and increased amalgamation of channel forms. Sixth order aggradational and retrogradational models are related to transgressive periods. Stacked fifth order architectures deposited within these systems become increasingly clay-rich, are more sinuous, have more avulsive events as channels aggrade above the equilibrium profile, and become less amalgamated as fourth order channel forms decrease in size and become interbedded with sheet complexes. Sixth order architecture and seventh order fan evolution is examined using a combination of fifth order stacked architectures, wireline and seismic data. The Parker Terrace, which contains the Mutineer, Lambert, Egret and Montague fields, contains a seventh order system that comprises curved, coalescing fan systems up to 15 kilometres long separated by up to six lowstand events. The central Dampier Sub-basin, which contains the Angel, Cossack and Wanaea fields, contains a seventh order fan system up to 50 kilometres long also separated by up to six lowstand events. This regional architectural analysis demonstrates that the majority of sediment in the Dampier Sub-basin during Tithonian time was deposited along the basin's central axis. Additional sediment was sourced from the Rankin Trend in the west to form small fan systems along the Parker Terrace. Non-depositional processes play a critical role in the lateral distribution and post-depositional subsurface profile of architectural elements. Active tectonism may have influenced lithofacies distribution and the location of feeder complexes in the Angel, Egret and Montague fields. Subsurface remobilisation of sandstones led to the formation of clastic injectites in fields along the Parker Terrace and sub-vertical polygonal fault injectites in fields within the central basin axis. These features can influence the lateral and vertical connectivity of depositionally independent reservoir intervals. The high resolution sub-seismic scaled architectural system can be applied in combination with seismic interpretation to help constrain the exploratory risk of stratigraphic plays. Furthermore, it can assist future development programs of discovered hydrocarbon accumulations by enhancing knowledge of lateral architectural variability away from the borehole.


This article summarises and presents the main findings of Marie-Anne Dujarier's French book Troubles dans le travail (2021). It focuses on the "travail" category of thought and practice in France, where it has become a ubiquitous and moral notion. The article traces the history of its social uses, highlighting its polysemy with respect to vernacular and scientific uses, then its limited meaning when used in institutions. It examines contemporary situations in which activity requiring effort, the production of use or exchange values, and the status of employment and remuneration are disconnected. Their frequency and importance cast doubt on who is working and when. This disruption in the "work" category of thought indicates that the eponymous institutions do not adequately accommodate real practices. They are therefore questioned. This observation is also an invitation for researchers to unpick this word for a better analysis of contemporary social, psychological and ecological issues. In France, the word "travail" is ubiquitous in our day-to-day exchanges, as well as in our scientific and political discussions ("travail" is often translated as 'work' or 'labour', translations are part of the history of the category). Although regularly given only one value, it also has a moral domain. But what does it mean? This article offers Anglo-Saxon readers a summary of in-depth sociological research on this issue, published in the book called Work Troubles. Sociology of a category of thought (French original title: Troubles dans le travail. Sociologie d'une catégorie de pensée) by the author of this article.


n practice managers often anticipate future situations in their present time decision making.In theory however, mathematical models proposed in the literature very often do not take this anticipatory dimension into account. In this paper, by applying computer aided system technique (CAST), ways of extending that classical modelling techniques to include anticipation and retardation are demonstrated. The work is based on a cybernetic management model dealing with multi-level actions and decision-making on operative, strategic, and normative planning levels. Hence, by developing a multi-level management model with anticipation and delay and implementing it as a computer based simulation tool we have been able to advance the state of the art. The simulations show different behaviours, varying from stable fixed point to completely chaotic, depending on the values of the parameters. The introduction of retardation leads to a less stable solution while the effect of anticipation is to render the system more stable.


BECK, COURTNEY HATHAWAY. Ground Safety Skills Among North Carolina 4-H Horse Program Participants. (Under the direction of John S. Rayfield.) Horses play a large role in the economic and recreational lives of many Americans. However, there are inherent risks associated with horse activities. According to the Children's Safety Network (2005), one in three equestrian-related injuries occur while dismounted. Despite this risk, the topic of horse ground safety has been neglected in both extension and agricultural education research. The objectives of this study were to benchmark the current level of horse ground safety skills among participants in the North Carolina 4-H Horse Program and to determine if background factors affected safety skills. By understanding more about the current level of horse ground safety, programming can be developed to address the weaknesses and increase the safety of this sport. The sample for this study (N=63) was drawn from attendants of the 2007 North Carolina 4-H Horsemanship Camp, held in June. Participating campers completed the researcher-developed questionnaire which consisted of 21 questions. The purpose of this form was to collect information about the campers' horse and 4-H background. Immediately following completion of the demographic form, the campers completed a skills test. The skills test was broken into three sections (stall safety, leading safety, and grooming safety), and each section was scored by trained horse industry specialists. The stall skills section had the highest mean score, followed by the grooming skills section then the leading skills section. Scores in all three sections were found to be less than acceptable. Of the background factors investigated, three were found to lead to significant differences in safety scores: owning a horse, ever taken riding lessons, and currently taking lessons. The background factors investigated that did not lead to higher safety scores were riding discipline and participation in 4-H Horse Program activities other than 4-H Horsemanship Camp. The researcher concluded that campers who participated in this study received safety scores that were lower than desirable, and that owning horses or taking riding positively influenced ground safety scores. The researcher proposed the following recommendations: young equestrians need formal instruction on ground safety, emphasize the educational benefits of participation in 4-H horse shows events as they relate to ground safety, evaluate youth horse programming to ensure it is meeting their educational needs and learning capabilities, and parents would benefit from ground safety training. Ground Safety Skills Among North Carolina 4-H Horse Program Participants by Courtney Hathaway Beck A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree Master of Science Extension Education Raleigh, North Carolina 2008


The rise of online trade alters the role of distance between (potential) buyers and sellers. We use data from eBay subsidiary Marktplaats.nl, one of the largest online trading platforms in the Netherlands, to estimate how distance affects the probability of a transaction between small geographical regions. We find that distance negatively and modestly affects the probability of having a transaction between two regions, and that the distribution of this probability is highly skewed: ranging from a change of 0.000 to -0.008 percentage points per marginal kilometer. The unconditional probability of a transaction is 27 percent. Distance is less influential for: advertisements with more photos advertisements placed by high-frequency advertisers for new goods in comparison to second hand goods. This suggests that information frictions might be the driving force behind the distance effect on online trade in the Netherlands.


In this study, we report a pulsed-voltage technique that is commonly employed in the electroplating industry to achieve a more efficient Si-glass anodic bonding process than the conventional constant electric field process. This technique features a less stringent voltage requirement and a shortened bonding time without compromising the tensile strength of the bonded structure. A square waveform voltage profile is used to investigate the effects of pulsed-voltage profile on the bonding time. In particular, the effects of magnitude of the base voltage and duration of the peak and base voltages are investigated. With peak and base voltages set to 400 and 300 V, respectively, and the duration of each voltage pulse fixed at 10-30 s, the bonding time is reduced to 30% of that required by a constant field process (400 V). Tensile strength of all completely bonded Si-glass pairs prepared by this technique is greater than 15 MPa. A postulated bonding mechanism based on the experimental results is presented.


Maize hybrids with improved stover yield and quality are needed to support the emerging cellulosic biofuels industry. Knowledge of the genetic variation, covariation, and genetic archi- tecture of agronomic and cell wall traits will help maize breeders improve relevant traits through selective breeding and genetic engineering. We utilized the maize intermated B73 × Mo17 (IBM) recombinant inbred line (RIL) population to map quantitative trait loci (QTL) and to evalu- ate the genetic relationships among traits rel- evant for cellulosic biofuel production, including grain yield, stover yield, neutral detergent fi ber digestibility (NDFD), and glucan, xylan, and lig- nin concentration. Intermated B73 × Mo17 RIL were evaluated per se and as testcrosses to W604S to assess how well performance and QTL effects correspond between inbreds and hybrids. There were no unfavorable correlations between agronomic and cell wall traits within the testcross progeny. Polysaccharide content was either positively correlated to, or not cor- related to, NDFD, indicating that increasing both carbohydrate content and convertibility is fea- sible. Quantitative trait loci were identifi ed for all traits evaluated, but few QTL were in common between inbred per se and testcross evaluations despite moderate to high genotypic correlations between progeny types. This study provides information that will support the development of dual-purpose maize hybrids that are high in grain yield and also high in yield of digestible cellulosic feedstock.


A system and method of building component applications are provided. Component applications are executed on terminal devices, which communicate with a schema-based service via a network and the Internet. The component applications comprise data components, presentation components, and message components, which are written a structured definition language such as XML code. The component applications further comprise workflow components which can be written as a series of instructions such as in a subset of ECMAScript, and are embedded in the XML code.


Abstract
This qualitative study was designed to understand the goals and motivations of High School Humanitarian Trip leaders. Three trip animators from three high schools from one school board in the Montreal area were interviewed and my own experience was added to the interview results. The three main areas investigated were: 1) The impact animators feel they have on participants, their schools and communities, as well as the communities they visit. 2) Their knowledge, understanding and management of the critiques leveled against this type of travel. 3) How these factors work to motivate the continuation of trips in a positive way.
Organizing the endeavour is hard work, traveling with groups of adolescents is an enormous responsibility. So while each of the trip leaders had some great adventures, they would not continue with the projects if they did not perceive there to be a positive educational value derived through the relationships and connections that develop in this inter-cultural exchange. The trip leaders reflect in particular on the themes of learning and unlearning, on host communities and work projects and on gender issues. Acknowledging that there is no perfect way of generating communication and learning between cultures, trip leaders aim to move forward, using their experience to ensure that encounters occur with mutual openness and respect. This project aims to add the reflection of high school trip leaders to the general literature on internationalisation, globalisation and student exchanges that usually concentrate on the experiences of university and postsecondary students. It is also suggested that a more appropriate designation than Humanitarian Trips should be applied to these trips.
 Key words: Humanitarian trips, high school students, motivation and goals of trip leaders, learning and unlearning outcomes for students, impact on host communities, centrality of work projects, gender


Environmental Impact Assessment and Environmental Audit are tools of trade which are available for use by environmental managers around the world. They are applied as early as possible in decision-making throughout the life cycle of proposed development projects and actions that may have potentially significant impacts on biophysical and socio-cultural environments. These instruments provide for individual stakeholder and community participation in screening, scoping, environmental impact identification and evaluation, prior to development of Environmental and Social Management plan. Despite the application of Environmental Impact Assessment and Environmental Audit techniques in environmental management in Kenya for the past two decades, environmental problems continue to persist as evidenced majorly by incessant flooding, drought conditions, collapsing buildings and dams. There are very high hopes in Kenya for environmental conservation and restoration following the roll out of the Competence Based Curriculum (CBC) which entrenches environmental activities on three strands; the environment and its resources, the social environment and the care of environment. Competence Based Curriculum will produce environmental conscious citizens who will contribute towards making the planetary earth a better place to live in. The paper examines Environmental Impact Assessment and Environmental Audit practice in Kenya and suggests measures for better environmental management.

 Key words: Environment, impact, assessment, audit, competence based curriculum.


We present a case study on scaling Scrum in a large globally distributed software development project at Nokia, a global telecommunications company. We discuss how the case project scaled Scrum while growing from two collocated Scrum teams to 20 teams located in four countries and employing a total of 170 persons. Moreover, we report scaling challenges the case project faced during this 2,5 year journey. We gathered data by 19 semi-structured interviews of project personnel from two sites, interviewees comprising different roles including managers, architects, product owners, developers and testers. The project was highly successful from the business point of view, as agile enabled fast response to customer requirements. However, the project faced significant challenges in scaling Scrum despite attempts at applying the Large-scale Scrum (LeSS) framework. The organization experimented with different ways of implementing scaling practices like implementing common sprint planning meetings, Scrum-of-Scrums meetings, common demos and common retrospectives, as well as scaling the Product Owner role. We conclude the paper by reflecting on the scaling approach used in the case organization in contrast to the LeSS framework.


Deep pressure ulcers represent a major problem for individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI), with the initial damage often hidden underneath intact skin. Accordingly, early detection is difficult and treatment is problematic. In the present study, circulatory levels of biomarkers for muscle damage were investigated to explore their potential in the early detection of deep pressure ulcers. Baseline concentrations of creatine kinase, myoglobin (Mb), heart-type fatty acid binding protein (H-FABP), and C-reactive protein (CRP) were measured in small groups of nondisabled (age 39-66 yr) subjects and subjects with SCI (age 40-68 yr, American Spinal Injury Association grade A-B, level of injury thoracic 11 to lumbar 3) over a period of 5 days. Each subject exhibited a unique concentration profile for all markers, although some correlations were observed; for example, Mb and H-FABP were correlated for both subject groups. No significant differences were found in marker concentrations between the two subject groups, although a trend toward higher CRP levels was observed in the SCI subjects. Furthermore, one SCI subject with a category II pressure ulcer exhibited higher H-FABP and CRP concentrations than all other subjects. Because the variations in each of the marker concentrations were smaller than the predicted increases after pressure ulcers, this combination of plasma markers may prove appropriate for the early detection of deep pressure ulcers.


This article argues that while modes of scholarship stressing structural insights into the digital divide and ethnographic insights into online communities each give us important information about current uses of the internet, for the sake of a unified social justice principle it is necessary to interpret these forms of knowledge in terms of what could be. Marx's formula 'the development of each as a condition for the development of all' is put forward as the principle of a socially-just internet actualized from the ground up. It is argued that the most rapidly emerging and important form of constraint upon 'the development of each' is the for profit online social media industry in which moments of human communicative creativity become packaged as commodities for commercial purposes. Creative, cultural agency becomes an imposition rather than a liberation as represented in the industry ideology. It is argued therefore that groups that use the internet for serious play – the use of avatars in virtual worlds is discussed as an example – present us with a form of online subjectivity that is rising in importance as a form of cultural agency inasmuch as the play component is premised upon the rejection of pre-packaged forms of agency. Support for a socially-just internet would thus mean supporting the online communities formed in this process. Thus the argument is put forward that the importance of serious online play groups is not due to their potential for forming communities per se but is rather due to their potential for resisting the imposition of agency. Inasmuch as online communities in the midst of such groups can bolster that goal, they can represent the development of human capabilities in a way that expands the theme of social justice.


In this chapter, we study the task of obtaining and using the exact cumulative bounds of various network reliability indices. A network is modeled by a non-directed random graph with reliable nodes and unreliable edges that fail independently. The approach based on cumulative updating of the network reliability bounds was introduced by Won and Karray in 2010. Using this method, we can find out whether the network is reliable enough with respect to a given threshold. The cumulative updating continues until either the lower reliability bound becomes greater than the threshold or the threshold becomes greater than the upper reliability bound. In the first case, we decide that a network is reliable enough; in the second case, we decide that a network is unreliable. We show how to speed up cumulative bounds obtaining by using partial sums and how to update bounds when applying different methods of reduction and decomposition. Various reliability indices are considered: k-terminal probabilistic connectivity, diameter constrained reliability, average pairwise connectivity, and the expected size of a sub- network that contains a special node. Expected values can be used for unambiguous decision-making about network reliability, development of evolutionary algorithms for network topology optimization, and obtaining approximate reliability values.


> What we learn in time of pestilence: that there are more things to admire in men than to despise (Albert Camus, The Plague (1947). New York: Vintage Books, 1991:308)

A consultant respiratory paediatrician sits down to watch the national news on a rare quiet evening after a busy winter viral season. The lead story reports that a child-care worker in the paediatrician's home city has recently been diagnosed with active pulmonary tuberculosis (TB). The local public health department is initiating an investigation to determine the sources of the infection, and the implications for those exposed to the worker, including the children attending the creche.

The consultant considers the situation—what is the likelihood some of these children are going to end up in her care? What are the factors that determine the likelihood of developing tuberculosis infection after exposure to an affected person? And what factors determine the progression from infection to active disease? An important consideration is the degree of infectiousness of the index case. Patients with cavitary pulmonary disease or laryngeal disease are more infectious as are those whose sputum is positive for acid-fast bacilli on direct microscopy. The duration and nature of contact the children have had with the child-care worker is important—close and prolonged contact is much higher risk. The physical environment, including ventilation and building layout, in which the contact took place can also be a determinant of transmission.1

The paediatrician knows children are particularly vulnerable to the development of TB disease following infection, and the younger the child, the higher the susceptibility and the more rapid the progression of disease: 50% of infected infants less than 1 year old will develop pulmonary or invasive disease, 20–30% of those aged 1–2 years, and 5% of those aged 2–5.2 Underlying illnesses in children causing immunosuppression …


In the Interpretation of Dreams Freud asks how and if the dream, which is made of images, can express its connective structure, and in particular the negation. This can be made only by interpretation. This question represents the thread to examine the problem of the critical import of figurative arts, by comparing Adorno's and Heidegger's theories. According to Adorno, the artwork is mimesis: the capability to express negativity coincides with its autonegation, with its disappearing. For Heidegger, on the contrary, the artwork is first of all a work, and interpretation is the reconstruction of its genesis, or better, the understanding of it as temporal. In the last part of the text the problem of the relationship between negation and image is tackled discussing Magritte's painting «Ceci n'est pas une pipe»: the structure of this painting (it is formed by images and words) makes it a rebus (like the dream, according to Freud), the deciphering of which carries a conceptual and interpretative work. Only this interpretation can account for the negation that it, as image, could otherwise not express.


On 27 November 2003 at approximately 12 pm a failure occurred without warning on a 52° mudstone slope adjacent to the customer carpark of a large department store in Avilés, Spain. No physical damage was caused to the department store but a high-pressure water main in the upper part of the slope was ruptured. A major concern was the proximity of a six-storey residential building at a distance of only 10 m from the crown failure scarp. Additionally, the resulting spoil caused the closure of the goods access road and rendered unusable numerous parking spaces. The estimated volume of the failure was c. 2000 m3. Following the failure, emergency remedial works were implemented to ensure the short-term stability of the failed mass and prevent possible retrogression of the failure towards the buildings. Geotechnical instrumentation was installed to monitor the stability of the area. A back-analysis of the failure was undertaken and, in conjunction with the results of the site characterization, led to a definitive solution: a rock-fill gravity retaining wall and an upper anchored rock-fill gravity retaining wall were designed and constructed, and the water main was re-routed away from the slope.


Definition of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) GIS software can be used to manipulate and display spatial information. Burrough & McDonnell (1998, p. 11) provide a number of definitions of GIS, based upon the concepts of the toolbox, database and organizational systems. Examples of each include: Toolbox definition: '... a system for capturing, storing, checking, manipulating, analysing and displaying data which are spatially referenced to the earth ...' Database definition: '... any manual or computer based set of procedures used to store and manipulate geographically referenced data ...' System definition: 'An organized collection of computer hardware, software, geographic data and personnel designed to efficiently capture, store, update, manipulate, analyse, and display all forms of geographically referenced information'. Organization based definition: '... a decision support system involving the integration of spatially referenced data in a problem solving environment ...' In the context of terrain evaluation the 'organization based' definition is considered to be the most appropriate. This is because the intended output of terrain evaluation is to support a decision making process. More specifically, GIS can help the terrain evaluation process answer questions such as those in Table 1. GIS data models Present day GIS store information in both raster and vector formats. Raster data comprise 'pixels' or tiles that fill space, thus something is stored about everywhere. The raster data structure has its origins in remote sensing and digital image processing software. Vector data are stored as points, lines or polygons, thus something is stored only where a change occurs.


ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code Section XI Code Case N-860 provides inspection requirements and evaluation standard for welded stainless steel canisters used for spent nuclear fuel storage. The Code Case defines an initial inspection interval and populations then defines examination requirements that are based on the primary degradation mechanism, chloride induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC). Additional examination requirements are based on the results of the initial screening examination. This paper summarizes the technical basis for the examinations and the evaluation criteria defined in Code Case N-860. Technical basis information for topics related to the inservice inspection and the flaw evaluation of canisters are described. The topics related to inservice inspection include: 1) the reasons for and the basis of requirements for the site susceptibility of the canister installations, 2) the inspection intervals required by the Code Case, 3) the inspection sample population required by the Code Case, 4) the methods and acceptance criteria for visual examinations required by the Code Case, and 5) the size and location of the required inspection region for supplemental examinations. The topics related to the flaw evaluation include: 1) a summary of the crack growth rate technical basis, and 2) background related to flaw size evaluation for spent fuel canisters.


Background: Bone metastases are common in breast cancer patients. Radiotherapy is safe and effective. This review aimes to contribute to the definition of the appropriate radiation regimens for different endpoints. Material and Methods: Information was compiled by searching PubMed and MEDLINE databases including early-release publications. When possible, primary sources were quoted. Full articles were obtained. References were checked for additional material when appropriate. Results: Randomized trials and meta-analyses demonstrated that single-fraction radiotherapy with 1 × 8 Gy is as effective for pain relief as multi-fraction regimens such as 5 × 4 Gy or 10 × 3 Gy. Re-irradiation for recurrent pain is required more often after single-fraction radiotherapy. Re-irradiation with another single fraction is safe and effective. Multi-fraction long-course radiotherapy such as 10 × 3 Gy leads to better re-calcification and better local control of metastatic spinal cord compression (MSCC). Because both re-calcification and MSCC recurrences occur only several months after radiotherapy, long-course radiotherapy is particularly appropriate for patients with a favorable survival prognosis. Conclusions: For uncomplicated painful bone metastases, single-fraction radiotherapy with 1 × 8 Gy may be considered the standard regimen. If re-calcification is a major goal, longer-course radiotherapy (i.e. 10 × 3 Gy) should be used. For MSCC, 10 × 3 Gy is preferable for patients with a favorable survival prognosis.


Online education has been around for at least 15 years and in the last decade more and more people have attended one of the forms of e-learning. We have been talking about ubiquitous computing, m-learning, e-learning, immersive technology, but nobody has imagined a world in which education would be provided exclusively online without thorough preparation, almost from one day to the next. The COVID-19 pandemic brought disruptions not only to the global economy, but also to other sectors of activity including education. Whole communities had to adapt rapidly to teaching and learning exclusively online which led to a number of problems that had not been encountered before. Designing an online course is similar to designing a traditional one because of the stages followed to ensure that its goals and objectives are met. Course design involves analyzing the beneficiaries, their needs and expectations, making decisions regarding the content of the course, the materials used, the teaching strategies, but also taking into account other factors such as: the limitations of the institution, the technology available, the staff, etc. However, the education system was not prepared for moving at a brisk pace from traditional interaction to the virtual one and inevitably educators were in the position to burn some of the stages of course design. Finally, while the current situation could not have been avoided, it can still be used to raise some questions and learn some lessons from the way in which traditional courses were altered in order to be provided online.


Microflora of oral cavity of people of 45-65 years with removable denture and children with acute herpetic stomatitis, its dependence upon the degree of local immunity, presence and severity of inflammatory process have been studied. Percentage of leucocyte subpopulations activity of bactericide enzymes of granulocytes, average anticolonization ratio, correlation of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, degree of colonization with Candida fungi have been determined is smear-simprints of mucous membrane. The intensity of growth of optional anaerobic microorganisms has been investigated in bacteriological studies of material taken from mucous membrane. Their identification has been performed using morphological-cultural and biochemical indices. Significant changes in microbiocenosis of oral cavity such as disappearance of autochthonous microflora, appearance and intensive growth of pathogenic and opportunistic microorganisms are to be observed in conditions of decrease of non-specific resistance and presence of inflammatory process in persons with removable denture and acute herpetic stomatitis.


The sudden death on 27 February 1963 of David Keilin deprived the scientific world of a biologist the span of whose scientific activities is unlikely to be equalled, much less excelled, in the future. These activities extended from descriptive morphology of protists, fungi and insects to the biochemistry of respiratory enzymes and metallo-protein compounds. It is, consequently, not possible for one person to deal adequately with all aspects of his work and in this appreciation of the man and his scientific achievements the main emphasis will be on his biological work. That bearing on parasitology will be considered in some detail, whereas the later, more biochemical, work will be considered briefly as fuller accounts of it have already been given by E. F. Hartree (Biochem. J.89, 1–5), T. R. R. Mann (Biogr. Mem. Fellows R. Soc.10, 185–207) and E. C. Slater (Enzymologia, 26, 313–20). In the brief survey of his biochemical work I have made much use of summaries and reports written by Keilin himself and I have often given the essence of lines of work summed up in his own words which express his conclusions with the elegance, lucidity and brevity characteristic of his style. As I was closely associated with David Keilin and in almost daily contact with him for just on forty years, it is natural that the following account will to some extent reflect my own interests and those aspects of his personality which became manifested during long and intimate contact both in private life and collaboration in scientific and administrative work.


Background: Before performing the first face transplant in the United States, the authors addressed several ethical considerations: subject selection, adequacy of informed consent, and risk-to-benefit analysis. Methods: Destruction of the patient's midface, including its bony architecture, had impaired the ability of the authors' patient to speak, eat, smell, and socialize. These functional impairments and the inability of conventional reconstruction to reconstruct this deformity justified considering this patient for face transplantation. The patient's resilience in adapting to her injury, her conscientious self-care following her initial injury, and her ability to understand the risks and uncertainties of the proposed procedure were important factors in selecting her as a candidate for this innovation. To enhance our patient's understanding of this largely untried procedure, the informed consent process occurred over multiple encounters involving both information disclosure and assessment of comprehension of what the procedure involved, including its potential benefits and risks. The patient demonstrated not only understanding of the procedure, including its innovative nature and concomitant uncertainties, but also that its goals were consistent with her values. Results: Research risk-to-benefit analysis involved balancing societal and subject benefits against subject risks. The potential benefit to society and increased knowledge of the role of face transplantation in facial reconstruction were substantial. The subject's benefits had been maximized and harms minimized through subject selection, team expertise, and preparation. This produced a risk-to-benefit profile in which we considered that the benefits sufficiently outweighed the risks to proceed with transplantation in this patient. Conclusion: Ethical considerations were important determinants in the decision to proceed with facial transplantation in this woman.


Data stores and cloud services are typically accessed using a client-server paradigm wherein the client runs as part of an application process which is trying to access the data store or cloud service. This paper presents the design and implementation of enhanced clients for improving both the functionality and performance of applications accessing data stores or cloud services. Our enhanced clients can improve performance via multiple types of caches, encrypt data for providing confidentiality before sending information to a server, and compress data for reducing the size of data transfers. Our clients can perform data analysis to allow applications to more effectively use cloud services. They also provide both synchronous and asynchronous interfaces. An asynchronous interface allows an application program to access a data store or cloud service and continue execution before receiving a response which can significantly improve performance. We present a Universal Data Store Manager (UDSM) which allows an application to access multiple different data stores and provides a common interface to each data store. The UDSM also can monitor the performance of different data stores. A workload generator allows users to easily determine and compare the performance of different data stores. We also present NLU-SA, an application for performing natural language understanding and sentiment analysis on text documents. NLU-SA is implemented on top of our enhanced clients and integrates text analysis with Web searching. We present results from NLU-SA on sentiment on the Web towards major companies and countries. We also present a performance analysis of our enhanced clients.


Image recognition systems offer the promise to learn from images at scale without requiring expert knowledge. However, past research suggests that machine learning systems often produce biased output. In this article, we evaluate potential gender biases of commercial image recognition platforms using photographs of U.S. members of Congress and a large number of Twitter images posted by these politicians. Our crowdsourced validation shows that commercial image recognition systems can produce labels that are correct and biased at the same time as they selectively report a subset of many possible true labels. We find that images of women received three times more annotations related to physical appearance. Moreover, women in images are recognized at substantially lower rates in comparison with men. We discuss how encoded biases such as these affect the visibility of women, reinforce harmful gender stereotypes, and limit the validity of the insights that can be gathered from such data.


AIM
The first-line therapy for polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is weight loss focussing on diet and regular exercise; measurement of diet and energy intake (EI) is important to determine associations between nutrients and health in women with PCOS. The EI underreporting (UR) is a condition characterised by reports of habitual EI that is implausibly low, compared with estimated requirements. This case-control study aims to evaluate UR in women with PCOS.

METHODS
Thirty-six women with PCOS were enrolled according to the Rotterdam criteria; 37 healthy women were enrolled as controls.

INCLUSION CRITERIA
age range 18-45 and body mass index ≥18.5 kg/m2 in subjects without eating disorders and/or diabetes mellitus. Nutritional assessment included: anthropometry, basal metabolic rate (BMR), weight history and physical activity assessment. Subjects completed a non-consecutive three-day dietary diary to identify energy and macronutrient intake. UR was calculated (Goldberg Index: EI/BMR).

RESULTS
Although women with PCOS reported a significantly higher mean BMR than controls (P < 0.0001), their EI was lower (P < 0.001), suggesting an UR in 47.2% of women with PCOS versus 2.7% of controls (P < 0.0001). The EI from simple sugars was lower in women with PCOS than controls (P < 0.01). The protein intake was increased in controls than women with PCOS (P < 0.0001). Weight cycling was more frequent in women with PCOS (P < 0.001). Logistic regression analysis identified UR associated with PCOS (P = 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS
Women with PCOS underreport foods rich in simple sugars rather than underreport their total dietary intake. These results may have implications for the interpretation of diet and health correlations in this patient population.


Verify possible associations between obesity and knee OA in users of Brazilian Unified National Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde - SUS) of primary care network in Catalão-GO, Brazil. This is an observational study conducted in 2014 and 2015. A total of 81 volunteers from the Basic Attention Network in the city of Catalão, with body mass index (BMI) over 30 kg/m2 in both sexes, age between 40 and 60 years, and OA on radiological examination of the knee. Obesity was classified according to BMI. The diagnosis of osteoarthritis (OA) was made clinically and by radiography according to Kellgren radiological classification. The level of physical activity was assessed using the Baecke questionnaire and the Gordon Functional Classification. The volunteers underwent an anthropometric evaluation and physical examination with inspection and palpation of the joint and subsequent radiological examination of the knee. The volunteers answered a questionnaire on the level of physical activity and functional classification. Data analysis was performed using Fisher's exact test or chi-square test was used for comparisons of two proportions. In comparisons of continuous variables, Student's t-test or the nonparametric Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test was used. The level of significance was set to 5%. Practice of regular physical exercise decreases functional impairment in obese individuals with knee OA. The weight variable demonstrated a strong association with the severity of OA and degree of functionality of patients. Obesity and OA durations and lack of patient guidance are variables that may contribute to the progression of knee OA. Although the incidence among men is lower, they are more severely affected and anthropometric evaluation and physical examination are an efficacy implementations for Brazilian users of SUS.


Reliability and survivability of electric power systems (EPS) depend on transient stability assessment (TSA). One of the most effective way to TSA is time-domain simulation. However, large-scale EPS mathematical model contains a stiff nonlinear system of high-order differential equations. Such system cannot be solved analytically. At the same time, numerical methods are imperfectly applied for such system due to limitation conditions. To make it appropriate, the EPS mathematical model is simplified and additional limitations are used. These simplifications and limitations reduce reliability of simulation results. Consequently, their validation is needed. The most reliable approach to provide it is to compare the simulation results with the field data. However, in practice, there are not enough data for such validation. This paper proposes an alternative approach for validation – the application of a reference model instead of field data. A hardware-software system HRTSim was used as a reference model. This power system simulator has all the necessary properties and capabilities to obtain reliable information required for comprehensive validation of transient stability calculations in EPSs. Main disturbances leading to instability in EPSs are investigated to conduct the validation (processes in cases of faults, single-phase auto-reclosing operation and power system interconnection). Fragments of corresponding experimental studies illustrate the efficiency of the proposed approach. Obtained results confirmed the possibility of the developed approach to identify the causes of numerical calculation errors and to determine disturbances calculated with the significant error. In addition, experimental studies have revealed that numerical calculations error depends on disturbances intensity.


The post-millennial era and the Internet evolution have opened flood gates for e-learning as a mode of education. However, overreliance on secondary information as a vehicle to inform the impact of e-learning provides filtered information regarding online learning. Many studies and articles have explored the impetus of online learning, but there remains a gap in understanding online learning through the students ' perspective. In a provocative and equally intriguing book, George Veletsianos reconnoiters online learning by critically focusing on students ' experiences to inform his findings.


Holography, Locality and Symmetries of The Universe Xiao Xiao It is an interesting question that, with a well tested duality between the quantum gravity in anti de Sitter space and a quantum field theory in one lower dimension, whether quantum gravity in a cosmological background has a well defined dual description. In large N limit, this duality could be a correspondence between an approximately local gravity theory describing cosmology and a quantum field theory. In dS/CFT, the quantum field theory is a Euclidean CFT living at the conformal boundary of de Sitter space, in large N limit, we should expect the local observables in de Sitter cosmology be recovered from the CFT. We explicitly develop this construction for scalar fields and derive the operator map at lowest order of 1 N expansion. Having addressed the fundamental question of how local fields in de Sitter cosmology arise via holography, we focus on the theory of cosmological perturbations that is described in terms of local field theory. The curvature perturbations during inflation, which originated from quantum fluctuations of inflaton and which induced the CMB inhomogeneity we see today, as well as the large scale structure, can be described as Goldstone boson fields which nonlinearly realize a subset of general coordinate transformations as residual symmetries. This fact puts strong constraints on the behavior of the cosmological correlation functions, and a series of consistency relations constraining the soft limits of these correlation functions can be derived as Ward identities.


Social robots offer a promise of relatedness without the limitations of human ability and availability. However, the idea of robotic companionship can also cause unease, a phenomenon I coin the Social Uncanniness of robotic companions. This sense of unease could be attributed to the fact that social robots touch on deeply rooted psychological concerns, including our need to be unique individuals that cannot easily be replaced or replicated; our ambivalent relationship with natural decay, including our own; and a fear that by relating to robots we may lose our ability to relate appropriately to other humans.