Recent years have shown a trend by regulatory agencies towards increased scrutiny of metals in effluent discharges. As a result, stricter enforcement and lower water quality criteria for metals have become more commonplace. Additionally, EPA policy, adopted in May of 1995, promotes the use of dissolved metals to set and measure compliance with water quality standards and presents alternatives to metals permitting. Implementation of such criterion leaves no room for sampling and analysis error, thus putting a premium on obtaining accurate, low concentration trace metal data. At stake are potential noncompliance fines, unnecessary treatment plant modifications, hampering the industrial development of an area, loss of discharge permits, and exposure to increasingly common third-party lawsuits. The scientific and regulatory communities are now in general agreement that historical background receiving water metal concentrations are substantially overestimated (U.S. EPA 1992, Windom et al. 1991). It is therefore reasonable to assume that the same contamination has and is occurring with conventional sampling and analytical methods for effluents. Historically the total recoverable form of the metal was used for evaluation of environmental impact. Recently the EPA (U.S. EPA 1995, U.S. EPA 1994) has recommended the only way to obtain such accurate metal data at low concentrations is through the implementation of clean chemistry techniques. These techniques have been developed in the Oceanographic Community over the past twenty years out of the necessity to minimize contamination and analyze ambient trace metal concentrations which are very low (Bruland et al. 1979, Patterson and Settle 1976, Shiller and Boyle 1985 and 1987). Case studies involving a paper mill effluent copper study, an estuarine receiving water zinc study, and a Virginia municipal wastewater facility are examples of the application and importance of such techniques for the domestic and industrial community. Data are not only defensible to regulators, but provide a more accurate view of background and effluent concentrations. These results improve the integrity of the database and typically resolve the majority of concerns. However, if the metal concentrations are above levels of concern, various permitting alternatives such as the chemical translator approach, water effects ratios, recalculation of mixing zones, seasonally tiered permits or variances could be pursued. These alternatives focus on the toxic forms of the metals. This approach accommodates improved information and data to protect the environment, without diverting significant funds from other needs.


A content analysis of more than 3400 news items published in national and regional Dutch (quality) newspapers, in combination with ethnographic audience and production research, has allowed us to explain when, how and why news can hurt. A longitudinal ethnographic case study of two highly mediatized urban areas shows how residents claim to lose touch with everyday reality as a result of continuous one-dimensional and sensationalized news coverage of their neighbourhood. This case study also illuminates how participatory media enable residents to negotiate, make sense of and give meaning to alternative, more "realistic" readings of everyday life. Finally, the research suggests how professional journalistic routines might have to change in order to prevent news from being unnecessarily painful: from citizen participation to citizen facilitation, from an accent on negative news and a critical tone of voice to doing justice to the multilayered reality of neighbourhoods, from a focus on extraordinary events to explaining everyday occurrences.


Text documents stored in information systems usually consist of more information than the pure concatenation of words, i.e., they also contain typographic information. Because conventional text retrieval methods evaluate only the word frequency, they miss the in-formation provided by typography, e.g., regarding the importance of certain terms. In order to overcome this weakness, we present an approach which uses the typographical information of text documents and show how this improves the efficiency of text retrieval methods. Our approach uses weighting of typographic information in addition to term frequencies for separating relevant information in text documents from the noise. We have evaluated our approach on the basis of automated text classification algorithms. The results show that our weighting approach achieves very competitive classification results using at most 30% of the terms used by conventional approaches, which makes our approach significantly more efficient.


In this paper, an optimized approximation algorithm (OAA) is proposed to address the overfitting problem in function approximation using neural networks (NNs). The optimized approximation algorithm avoids overfitting by means of a novel and effective stopping criterion based on the estimation of the signal-to-noise-ratio figure (SNRF). Using SNRF, which checks the goodness-of-fit in the approximation, overfitting can be automatically detected from the training error only without use of a separate validation set. The algorithm has been applied to problems of optimizing the number of hidden neurons in a multilayer perceptron (MLP) and optimizing the number of learning epochs in MLP's backpropagation training using both synthetic and benchmark data sets. The OAA algorithm can also be utilized in the optimization of other parameters of NNs. In addition, it can be applied to the problem of function approximation using any kind of basis functions, or to the problem of learning model selection when overfitting needs to be considered.


&NA; For over two decades, Indonesia has reported higher average shark landings than any other nation, but very little local information exists on the fishery and life histories of targeted species. This poses severe challenges to shark sustainability and conservation in this vast archipelago. We draw on diverse sources of data to evaluate the sustainability of the shark fishery in eastern Indonesia, a particularly data‐poor region where sharks are primarily targeted for their fins. Shark fishers from three coastal communities were interviewed on their perceptions of catch trends over the past twenty years and asked to collect fishing data during fishing trips in the Seram, Arafura and Timor Seas. For the most frequently harvested species, we estimated maximum intrinsic rates of increase (rmax) to predict their resilience to fishing pressure. Our results indicate that shark fishing practices in the region are likely to be unsustainable. The catches of several species largely comprised of immature individuals and most fishers attributed observed declines in shark numbers, size and species diversity to overfishing. Hammerhead sharks have relatively high intrinsic resilience but are nevertheless at risk of local extinction due to their availability to the fishery and the value of their fins. Sandbar, dusky and grey reef sharks have lower resilience and are frequently caught but not managed. We recommend a composite management approach, including consistent implementation of existing trade restrictions, fisheries research and opportunities for fishers' livelihood diversification, to stem shark harvests in eastern Indonesia.


Summary
According to the threat-sensitivity hypothesis, prey avoidance behaviour should reflect the magnitude of predation risk. Since predation can strongly affect reproduction success, ovipositing females are expected to adaptively adjust their predator avoidance response, or local breeding patch selectivity, in accordance with the perceived level of threat posed for their progeny by specific predators. However, association between avoidance and predation can be disrupted when the prey and the predator lack spatiotemporal opportunities to co-evolve, such as in cases of non-native predator introductions.
We examined the interactions between mosquitoes (from the genus Culex) and three species of sympatric predaceous freshwater fish, a native cyprinid Barbus paludinosus, a cichlid Pseudocrenilabrus philander and an introduced poeciliid, the western mosquitofish Gambusia affinis.
In an outdoor mesocosm experiment, we quantified patterns of Culex oviposition site selection across fish species using free-roaming, caged and fish-free treatments. In a complementary laboratory experiment, we tested the effectiveness of each fish species as predators of mosquito eggs and larvae.
Synthesis and applications. We found evidence for: (i) mosquito egg raft predation by free-roaming fish; (ii) fish-specific avoidance by ovipositing Culex; and (iii) a positive association between fish-specific oviposition avoidance and fish-specific efficiency as an egg predator. These results contribute towards a better understanding of predator–prey co-evolution, predator-borne cue recognition, and suggest local native fish, the southern mouthbrooder Pseudocrenilabrus philander, as an alternative to Gambusia for the biocontrol of Culex mosquitoes.


A novel design and assembly technology is developed for a three-dimensional (3-D) flexible thermal flow sensor based on convective heat transfer to reduce detection error caused by position variation of a sensor inside the flow of narrow and curved geometries, such as coronary artery. The 3-D sensor has three independent sensing elements equally distributed around the catheter tube. This arrangement introduces three independent information channels, and cross-comparisons are used to provide accurate flow measurement. The resistance of the sensing elements is measured at ~ 1-1.2 kΩ with the temperature coefficient of resistance at 0.086%/°C. Using a constant-current circuit, the three sensing elements are heated to ~ 10°C above ambient temperature. Flow testing is implemented in a pipe channel at two positions: on the wall and along the center line. Experimental results from these two positions are discussed and computational fluid dynamic simulation based on Newtonian fluid properties is implemented, showing comparable results within an acceptable range of experimental to simulation errors. Therefore, we demonstrate the capability of 3-D thermal flow sensor for detecting the position of the catheter in the flow channel, thereby providing an accurate flow measurement.


This article is based on a knowledge translation (KT) study of the transition of patients from hospital to home. It focuses on the lessons learned about the challenges of translating research-derived critical knowledge in practice settings. The authors situate the article in current discourses about KT; discuss their understanding of the nature of critical knowledge; and present themes from their body of research, which comprises the knowledge that was translated. The findings have the potential to guide future KT research that focuses on the uptake of critical knowledge in nursing practice.


Discovering distant evolutionary relationships between proteins requires detecting subtle similarities. Here we use a combination of sequence and structure analysis to show that the C‐terminal domain of Escherichia coli HPII catalase with available spatial structure is a divergent member of the type I glutamine amidotransferase (GAT) superfamily. GAT‐containing proteins include many biosynthetic enzymes such as E. coli carbamoyl phosphate synthetase and anthranilate synthase. Typical GAT domains have Rossmann fold‐like topology and possess a catalytic triad similar to that of proteases. The C‐terminal domain of HPII catalase has the GAT Rossmann fold but lacks the triad and therefore loses enzymatic activity. In addition, we detect significant sequence similarity between thiJ domains, some of which are known to have protease activity, and typical GAT proteins. Evolutionary tree analysis of the entire GAT superfamily indicates that the HPII catalase is more closely related to thiJ domains than to classical GAT domains and is likely to have evolved from a thiJ‐like protein. This work illustrates the strength of sequence‐based profile analysis techniques coupled with structural superpositions in developing an evolutionarily relevant classification of protein structures. Proteins 2001;42:230–236. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Due to very short T2 relaxation times, imaging of tendons is typically performed using ultra-short echo-time (UTE) acquisition techniques. In this work, we combined an echo-train shifted multi-echo 3D UTE imaging sequence with a 3D curved surface reconstruction to virtually extract the patellar tendon from an acquired 3D UTE dataset. Based on the analysis of the acquired multi-echo data, a T2* relaxation time parameter map was calculated and interpolated to the curved surface of the patellar tendon.


Power consumption from logic circuits, interconnections, clock distribution, on chip memories, and off chip driving in CMOS VLSI is estimated. Estimation methods are demonstrated and verified. An estimate tool is created. Power consumption distribution between interconnections, clock distribution, logic gates, memories, and off chip driving are analyzed by examples. Comparisons are done between cell library, gate array, and full custom design. Also comparisons between static and dynamic logic are given. Results show that the power consumption of all interconnections and off chip driving can be up to 20% and 65% of the total power consumption respectively. Compared to cell library design, gate array designed chips consume about 10% more power, and power reduction in full custom designed chips could be 15%. >


Subcellular mRNA localization is critical to a multitude of biological processes such as development of cellular polarity, embryogenesis, tissue differentiation, protein complex formation, cell migration, and rapid responses to environmental stimuli and synaptic depolarization. Our understanding of the mechanisms of mRNA localization must now be revised to include formation and trafficking of biomolecular condensates, as several biomolecular condensates that transport and localize mRNA have recently been discovered. Disruptions in mRNA localization can have catastrophic effects on developmental processes and biomolecular condensate biology and have been shown to contribute to diverse diseases. A fundamental understanding of mRNA localization is essential to understanding how aberrations in this biology contribute the etiology of numerous cancers though support of cancer cell migration and biomolecular condensate dysregulation, as well as many neurodegenerative diseases, through misregulation of mRNA localization and biomolecular condensate biology. This article is categorized under: RNA Export and Localization > RNA Localization RNA in Disease and Development > RNA in Disease RNA in Disease and Development > RNA in Development.


Antibiotic resistance in gram negative bacteria is increasing worldwide in both outpatients as well as hospitalized patients. Most bacterial isolates carry resistance determinants for extended spectrum beta lactamases (ESBL) production on plasmids that can easily spread from organism to organism. This study was conducted to compare the rate of detection of ESBL positive organisms by different methods, to use the clinical and laboratory standard institute (CLSI) detection methods for detecting ESBLs in bacteria other than Enterobacteriaceae and genotypic characterization of these ESBL strains. A total of 100 non repetitive gram negative isolates, which were resistant to ceftriaxone, cefotaxime or ceftazidime were only included in the study. All the 100 screen test positive isolates were tested for ESBL production using the different phenotypic detection methods. Molecular characterization of the strains was done at the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology, Trivandrum. Among total 100 gram negative isolates which were 3 generation cephalosporin resistant, 79(79%) were ESBL positive by using CLSI phenotypic confirmatory test. Of this 79%, majority of isolates were detected in blood samples (38%). Of the different methods employed, E-test detected additional 3% and 11% ESBL positive Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae respectively. CLSI phenotypic confirmatory test also detected ESBL positive Pseudomonas sp, Acinetobacter sp and Enterobacter cloacae. The genotype characterization of 52 isolates showed 29 with CTX-M and 13 with TEM genes. Thus, the study shows a significant rate of ESBL production in gram negative bacteria emphasizing the need for enhanced infection control and antibiotic stewardship programs to limit the spread of these organisms.


Since the beginning of the Republic, officers of our armed services have worn patriotic symbols on their uniforms. For naval officers these symbols were the eagle and anchor and these have been incorporated in their belt plate designs since the Revolutionary War. This book illustrates the belts and belt plates worn by U.S. naval officers of all ranks from the Navy's founding through World War II. It also addresses the belts and plates worn by the U.S. Marine Corps through the 19th century, with a separate chapter on those worn by Confederate naval officers during the Civil War. These historic items, from private collectors and museums throughout the country, are presented in color and include most, if not all, of the belt plate designs worn by these three services. The uniform regulations that defined the various design features over time are also summarized with the patterns that were typically used in the 19th century to specify military uniforms.


The purpose of the paper is to examine latent volatility Granger causality for four renewable energy Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and crude oil ETF (USO), namely solar (TAN), wind (FAN), water (PIO), and nuclear (NLR). Data on the renewable energy and crude oil ETFs are from 18 June 2008 to 20 March 2017. From the underlying stochastic process of a vector random coefficient autoregressive (VRCAR) process for the shocks of returns, we derive Latent Volatility Granger causality from the Diagonal BEKK multivariate conditional volatility model. We follow Chang et al. (2015)'s definition of the co-volatility spillovers of shocks, which calculate the delayed effect of a returns shock in one asset on the subsequent volatility or co-volatility in another asset, and extend the effects of the covolatility spillovers of shocks to the effects of the co-volatility spillovers of squared shocks. The empirical results show there are significant positive latent volatility Granger causality relationships between solar (TAN), wind (FAN), nuclear (NLR), and crude oil (USO) ETFs, specifically significant volatility spillovers of shocks from solar ETF on the subsequent wind ETF co-volatility with solar ETF, and wind ETF on the subsequent solar ETF covolatility with wind ETF. Interestingly, there are significant volatility spillovers of squared shocks for the renewable energy ETFs, but not with crude oil ETFs.


From a French perspective, French Polynesia is often described as an overseas territory that has been virtually decolonized through the granting of statutes of autonomy. In stark contrast, pro-independence local political parties still consider the country a colony and have successfully lobbied for a process of decolonization under United Nations oversight. This article assesses these competing claims through an analysis of the political evolution of the territory since World War II. The analysis shows that French Polynesia has never been genuinely decolonized. In the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, the French government arbitrarily pulled the territory out of all available international or French domestic decolonization processes, subjecting it to an anachronistic restoration of colonial authority that included the arrest and long-term imprisonment of its major political leader and a series of other unusually undemocratic measures. This led to, and culminated in, the construction of a nuclear testing facility, with tremendous environmental, health, and economic consequences during the following three decades. Later, after giving in to local protests demanding autonomy, France misused that concept not only to cover up a de-facto continuity of colonial rule but also to create a corrupt authoritarian local government favorable to French interests. Recent actions taken and attitudes demonstrated by the French government and its representatives, including repeated arbitrary modifications of the rules of local politics and meddling therein in order to secure their favorites in power, have shown that French colonialism in French Polynesia is alive and well. An international campaign for the decolonization of the country is thus clearly warranted.


Institutes of higher education around the world have increasingly adopted community-based experiential learning (EL) programs as pedagogy to equip their students with skills and values that make them more open to an increasingly unpredictable and ill-defined 21st-century world. Values of social justice, empathy, care, collaboration, creativity, and resilience have all been seen as potential benefits of community engagement through EL. In the field of teacher education, the goals of preparing teachers for the 21st century have undergone similar changes with the local community being positioned more and more as a knowledge space that is rich in learning opportunities for both preservice and in-service teachers. It is no longer enough for teacher educators to only focus on the teaching of classroom strategies and methods; beginning teachers' must now move toward a critical interrogation of their role as a community-based teacher. Boundary-crossing projects established by teacher education institutes and that are embedded in local communities can complement more traditional pedagogies such as classroom-based lectures and teaching practicum. Such an approach to teacher education can allow for new teachers to draw on powerful community knowledge in order to become more inclusive and socially connected educators. In sum, community-based EL in teacher preparation programs can create a hybrid, nonhierarchical platform for academics, practitioners, and community partners who bring together different expertise that are all seen as being beneficial to teacher development in a rapidly changing and uncertain world.
 While research has shown that community-based EL projects can bring tangible benefits to students, universities, and community members, a number of contentious issues continue to surround the topic and need to be addressed. One concerns the very definition of community-based EL itself. There is still a need to better characterize what community-based EL is and what it involves, because too often it is seen in overly simplistic terms, such as voluntary work, or categorized loosely as another example of service-learning endeavors, including field studies and internship programs. There has also been a paucity of research on the degree to which community-based EL projects in teacher training actually help to promote subject matter teaching skills. Other ongoing issues about the case for community-based learning in teacher education today include the question of who the teacher educators are in today's rapidly changing world and to what extent noneducation-related community partners should be positioned as co-creators of knowledge alongside teacher educators in the development of new teachers' personal and professional development.


The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America's students know and can do in various subject areas. is responsible, by law, for carrying out the NAEP project through competitive awards to qualified organizations. By making objective information on student performance available to policymakers at the national, state, and local levels, NAEP is an integral part of our nation's evaluation of the condition and progress of education. Only information related to academic achievement and relevant variables is collected under this program. The privacy of individual students and their families is protected to the fullest extent allowable under the law, and the identities of participating schools are not released. In 1988, Congress established the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) to oversee and set policy for NAEP. The Board is responsible for selecting the subject areas to be assessed; setting appropriate student achievement levels; developing assessment objectives and test specifications ; developing a process for the review of the assessment; designing the assessment methodology; developing guidelines for reporting and disseminating NAEP results; developing standards and procedures for interstate, regional, and national comparisons; determining the appropriateness of all assessment items and ensuring the assessment items are free from bias and are secular, neutral, and nonideologi-cal; taking actions to improve the form, content, use, and reporting of results of the National Assessment; and planning and executing the initial public release of NAEP reports. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the primary federal entity for collecting, analyzing, and reporting data related to education in the United States and other nations. It fulfills a congressional mandate to collect, collate, analyze, and report full and complete statistics on the condition of education in the United States; conduct and publish reports and specialized analyses of the meaning and significance of such statistics; assist state and local education agencies in improving their statistical systems; and review and report on education activities in foreign countries. general public. Unless specifically noted, all information contained herein is in the public domain. We strive to make our products available in a variety of formats and in language that is appropriate to a variety of audiences. You, as our customer, are the best judge of our success in communicating information effectively. If you have any comments or suggestions about this or any other NCES product or report, we would like to hear from you. …


The acute theme of this article is tolerance of the Russian culture through its meaningful manifestations in the world around us. The existence of different opinions on the concept of tolerance and inclusion of Russia into the global information society require the philosophical understanding of this concept and determination of its ontological background. The need for this understanding will help identify the ways of interaction of the Russian social reality with the outside world. The peculiarity of the process of liberal reforms in Russia also causes some resistance on the part of Russian culture and the Russian mentality. It should not be regarded as a lack of the Russian culture development, its inability to resist the onslaught of technological progress, on the contrary, this is its advantage – it isn't subject to technological progress, but it subordinates it. This also concerns other spheres of life of society – social, political, economic etc. Tolerance of the Russian culture is in meaningful and fair interaction with others, with their traditions and objectives. Such notions as consciousness, tolerance and emotional generosity are the basis of the Russian culture but not an anachronism. The Russian culture remains a significant guideline for researches in the contemporary informative world. A great number of world pattern answers are found in the Russian culture itself. Submissiveness and longanimity are not an indication of moral neglect and disability to understand current events. They are outstanding characteristics of the Russian culture and genuine tolerance, existing up to the present time.


This paper describes the pattern of infant feeding at discharge from care after birth and the characteristics of mothers who are at risk of low rates of breastfeeding. Methods: Data were obtained from the NSW Midwives Data Collection for 2007. Information on infant feeding was obtained for babies who were alive at discharge from care after birth. Of 96 030 births reported, 93 505 (97.4%) were eligible for analysis. A descriptive analysis of factors associated with variations in breastfeeding was carried out. Results: In 2007, 80% of babies were fully breastfed, 7% were partially breastfed, and 13% were not breastfed. Babies born to mothers with the following characteristics had relatively low rates of full breastfeeding: teenage mothers (69%); Aboriginal mothers (64%); mothers born in South-East Asia (71%), North-East Asia (72%) and Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia (74%); mothers who commenced antenatal care later than 20 weeks gestation (74%); mothers who smoked (67%); mothers who received general anaesthetic during delivery (67%); mothers who gave birth by caesarean section (76%); mothers living in the most socially disadvantaged areas (73%); mothers living in remote and very remote areas (73% and 76% respectively); and mothers of preterm infants (70%). Conclusion: There is a need to improve overall rates of breastfeeding initiation in NSW. Particular attention and support needs to be given to the groups of mothers identified in this study as having relatively low rates of full breastfeeding.


Abstract Earth's seismogenic crust is partitioned into the three Andersonian stress domains critically organized to the edge of failure both along plate boundaries and within plate interiors. Brittle/frictional failure in rocks (the formation and reactivation of faults and fractures) may be induced by two principal drivers: increasing differential stress (σ1–σ3) and/or pore fluid pressure, Pf, defined relative to vertical stress by λv=Pf/σv. Borehole measurements suggest the presence of hydrostatic-Byerlee conditions (the stress governed by the frictional strength of optimally oriented faults with Byerlee friction (0.6<μs<0.85) under hydrostatic fluid pressure), sometimes postulated as the standard state for fractured seismogenic crust with a bulk permeability too high to allow fluid overpressuring. However, especially in areas of crust undergoing shortening and fluid release under compression, pore fluids are likely to be overpressured above the hydrostatic pressure (i.e. λv>0.4) in the lower seismogenic zone (c. T>200°C), where hydrothermal circulation and cementation reduces fracture permeability. In such regions, critical stress overpressure states prevail with differential stress inversely related to the degree of fluid overpressuring. Failure criteria on plots of (σ1–σ3) v. λv constructed for particular depths can be used to explore critical stress overpressure states, loading paths to failure and potential mineralizing scenarios in different settings.


Recent advances in deep learning have been providing non-intuitive solutions to various inverse problems in optics. At the intersection of machine learning and optics, diffractive networks merge wave-optics with deep learning to design task-specific elements to all-optically perform various tasks such as object classification and machine vision. Here, we present a diffractive network, which is used to shape an arbitrary broadband pulse into a desired optical waveform, forming a compact pulse engineering system. We experimentally demonstrate the synthesis of square pulses with different temporal-widths by manufacturing passive diffractive layers that collectively control both the spectral amplitude and the phase of an input terahertz pulse. Our results constitute the first demonstration of direct pulse shaping in terahertz spectrum, where a complex-valued spectral modulation function directly acts on terahertz frequencies. Furthermore, a Lego-like physical transfer learning approach is presented to illustrate pulse-width tunability by replacing part of an existing network with newly trained diffractive layers, demonstrating its modularity. This learning-based diffractive pulse engineering framework can find broad applications in e.g., communications, ultra-fast imaging and spectroscopy.


The effects of different relative air humidity (RH) levels under high temperature and accompanying vapor pressure deficits (VPDs) on the physiology, photosynthesis, and anatomy of Rhododendron need to be better understood to help in reducing damage to leaves caused by high temperature. In this study, two Rhododendron cultivars were exposed at 45%, 55%, 65%, 75%, and 85% RH to a treatment of constant temperature at 38 °C for 14 days, resulting in a VPD of 3.64, 2.98, 2.32, 1.66, and 0.99 kPa, respectively. The results showed the least reduction of the net photosynthetic rate (Pn) under 75% RH treatment in R. 'Fen Zhenzhu' (decreased by 79.8%), and under the 85% RH treatment in R. 'Zhuangyuan Hong' (decreased by 75.4%). The decline in relative water content (RWC) was less under the 75% and 85% RH treatments, and electrolyte leakage showed a slight decrease under the 75% RH treatment in the two Rhododendron cultivars. The appearance of the two cultivars under greater RH showed less damage, probably because plants can avoid damage by increasing total chlorophyll content, decreasing stomatal area, stomatal density, and opened stomata ratio, enhancing enzymatic activity and osmoregulation substances, and improving leaf structure. The findings show that greater RH can alleviate damage caused by heat stress and improve thermostability.


Agricultural policy is critical to the developmental efforts of African states lacking major mineral resources. Despite its importance, however, the production of export agricultural crops declined in the rural sectors of Africa as food imports became increasingly burdensome. In this highly original study, Crawford Young, Neal P. Sherman, and Tim H. Rose offer a theoretical and empirical comparison of the role of agricultural cooperatives in two middle-sized African states, Ghana and Uganda. The lessons learned here are of broad value and interest to those involved in planning and development in Third World nations, and to scholars and students in political science, political and agricultural economics, and rural sociology. The authors field work for this study was extensive, spanning more than ten years, and including interviews with, and surveys of, more than 1,400 African farmers, government officials, and others involved in agricultural policy in the two nations. Cooperatives have played a paramount role in both nations, in the marketing of the major export commodities (cocoa in Ghana, cotton and coffee in Uganda), and the governments of both nations have played central roles in the development or discouragement of the cooperatives. For this reason, the cooperative experience offers important insight into the political economy of agricultural development. The authors found that the classic cooperative egalitarian ideology was, in both nations, subordinate to local patterns of social hierarchy. Nevertheless, farmers in the two nations particularly in Uganda were generally favorable to the cooperative idea in theory and practice. With patient support, the authors conclude, cooperatives can exert a moderately positive influence on agricultural and political development."


Each individual perceives and experiences life and learning in their own unique way. Past experiences can influence our understanding and mastery of new concepts. Occasionally, learners meet obstacles in their learning experiences which they find difficult to surmount. Not all learners require the same learning experience to reach the required thresholds or basic units of understanding which are expected to succeed with their course of study. Threshold concepts are part of the fundamentals of a subject which one builds upon to eventually achieve the required learning outcomes. The provision of personalised e-learning resources to assist students to surmount their personal learning difficulties could improve student engagement with the required threshold concepts and therefore assist each individual student in achieving their full potential. Tailored learning experiences which have been specifically selected to suit individual students learning requirements could be made available to the students who felt a need to use these resources to help them through frustrating times on route to grasping new concepts. This research reviews the functionality which non-technical educators would need to enable them to create personalised learning resources. The objective is to develop an authoring package which will enable non-technical authors create personalised learning resources and activities. These personalised elearning resources and activities could be used to assist students in grasping a deeper understanding of the threshold concepts required for their discipline. A deeper understanding of the fundamental topics will help students during their progression through the rest of the curriculum and course of study. The authoring package for personalising e-learning should facilitate the creation of personalised learning resources and activities by non-technical authors. A modular approach will be undertaken in the development of this authoring package and evaluations will be conducted on completion of each module. An overall evaluation of this authoring package for personalising e-learning will be undertaken once the package is complete.


Lower back pain is one of the leading causes of disability in the world. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of supplementation of dexmedetomidine and neostigmine with lidocaine 1.5% and triamcinolone for epidural block in increasing the duration of analgesia among patients suffering from chronic low back pain. In this double-blind, randomized clinical trial, 33 patients with chronic low back pain were included in three groups of 11 patients for epidural blockage. Triamcinolone (40 mg/ml) was added to lidocaine 1.5% solution (2 cc/segment) for all three groups. In group N, neostigmine was used at a dose of 1 mg (mg), followed by group D (dexmedetomidine 35 μg [0.5 μg/kg]), and grou [ND (neostigmine 0.5 mg, and 35 μg dexmedetomidine, all of which were added to the triamcinolone and lidocaine solution in each group. Medications were injected into the epidural space using an interlaminar approach. Subsequently, scores of pain and duration of analgesia were recorded in questionnaires and analysed using SPSS version 23. One month after the injections, pain scores recorded in the N group were 7.6±1.4, followed by 5.88±1.2 in group D and 5.42 ±1.1 in group ND. Therefore, the pain scores were significantly higher in the neostigmine group than the other two groups (p = 0.02), but no significant difference was found between the two groups that received dexmedetomidine and a combination of dexmedetomidine + neostigmine. Three months after the injections, there was a significant difference in pain scores between the two groups (P = 0.01). Both neostigmine and dexmedetomidine were capable of reducing the pain of patients with chronic low back pain after epidural block. However, neostigmine's impact is lower compared to dexmedetomidine. The combination of the two drugs also reduced the pain scores of the patients after the intervention.


SUMMARY Schizophrenia-spectrum disorders have a chronic and episodic course that results in impairment of all life domains. Pharmacological and psychosocial treatments provide symptom relief, but there is not a cure for schizophrenia and many patients suffer chronic impairment. In addition, it is expensive both in economical terms and also in terms of personal costs for both patients and their families. International interest has grown over the past 15 years in the prognostic potential of early identification and intervention in the prodromal and first-episode phases of psychotic illness. This focus is associated with increasing optimism about the benefits of implementing treatment as early as possible in the course of psychosis at least to help improve the course of illness, reducing its long-term impact. The most recent epidemiological studies have shown that patients with longer duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) have worse short-term outcomes in terms of treatment response, positive symptoms, negative symptoms, and global functioning. Neuroimaging studies have also indicated that prolonged untreated illness is associated with more pronounced structural brain abnormalities, while this is less prominent earlier in the course of the disorder. Therefore, early detection aims to reduce treatment delay in the hope of improving prognosis and reducing illness severity. Early intervention in psychotic disorders has gained momentum in the last decades, and there is now an estimated 200 centers worldwide offering specialized services for young people experiencing their first episode of psychosis. Each of these programs has unique characteristics and distinctive features in terms of treatment modalities and assessment tools, but most have a number of common elements and goals: a) early detection of new cases, b) reducing DUP, and c) providing better and continued treatment during the «critical period» of the early years of the disease. Moreover, the role of family work in early psychosis can be crucial given that relatives are the main informal caretakers of persons with mental health problems. Family interventions in early psychosis usually offer psychoeducation and/or individual and group family therapy, communication and problem solving training, which can help to develop coping strategies and reduce distress and burden. Intervention programs in early psychosis are usually composed by interdisciplinary teams, providing a wide range of integrated services that typically include psychoeducation, clinical case management, and group interventions. Specific interventions generally include pharmacotherapy, stress management, relapse prevention, social and employment rehabilitation support, and cognitive and family therapy. Given the complex etiology and clinical manifestation of psychosis, treatment packages for people experiencing early psychosis need to be individually tailored to specific needs rather than applied homogenously across early psychosis patients. The current challenge in the implementation of psychological interventions in the early stages of psychosis are: 1. to adapt treatment modalities that have been proven effective in stable and residual stages of the disease to its early stages; 2. to develop new forms of therapy tailored to the specific characteristics of these early stages of psychosis (prodromal and ultra high-risk phase, onset and first episode psychosis, and «critical period» or post-crisis psychosis); and 3. treatment packages need to be individually tailored to their specific needs rather than applied homogenously across a group of patients. The aims of this paper are: 1. to present the basic concepts, rationale and state of the art of the early detection and intervention paradigm; 2. to review and present the main detection and intervention programs in early psychosis and 3. to provide an overview of the current psychotherapeutic approaches in early psychosis.


Background and Aims: Opinion of students regarding the content, structure and quality of their training is a fundamental part of holistic evaluation of curriculum, and serves as an important information resource in policy making. In the present study, we aimed to contribute to the development, assessment and evaluation of the new national dental curriculum through evaluation of last-year dental students' opinions regarding undergraduate dental curriculum. Methods: This cross sectional questionnaire survey was done in 2010-2011 academic year. The target population was last-year dental students in 15 Iranian state dental schools. In these schools, all last-year dental students were invited to participate in the study. The chi-square test served for statistical analyses. Results: In total, 432 students (68.4% female) participated in the study. Of the respondents, 72.4% (60.7% of male and 77.6% of female, P=0.001) believed that their undergraduate dental training had been completely inadequate or inadequate. Only about one third of students believed that educational methods during their undergraduate dental training had been appropriate or completely appropriate. Conclusion: In general, it seems that undergraduate dental training from students' view point has not been appropriate in terms of both content and method. The results show the necessity of revision of national undergraduate dental curriculum.


Few-shot named entity recognition (NER) aims at identifying named entities based on only few labeled instances. Most existing prototype-based sequence labeling models tend to memorize entity mentions which would be easily confused by close prototypes. In this paper, we proposed a Prototypical Semantic Decoupling method via joint Contrastive learning (PSDC) for few-shot NER. Specifically, we decouple class-specific prototypes and contextual semantic prototypes by two masking strategies to lead the model to focus on two different semantic information for inference. Besides, we further introduce joint contrastive learning objectives to better integrate two kinds of decoupling information and prevent semantic collapse. Experimental results on two few-shot NER benchmarks demonstrate that PSDC consistently outperforms the previous SOTA methods in terms of overall performance. Extensive analysis further validates the effectiveness and generalization of PSDC.


We calculate the real and imaginary parts of the s-wave K - N scattering length in the I=0 channel, starting from the predictions of soft-meson current algebra. The multichannel ND -1 formalism is used to unitarize the amplitudes obtained from current algebra. We isolate dynamical off-mass-shell corrections in certain residues for one-pole approximations to the numerator functions. These residues, for which we make assumptions of smooth extrapolation, are obtained by comparing the unitarized amplitudes with the results of current algebra. The coupling of the K - N to the πΣ channel, which has a lower threshold, generates the imaginary part of the scattering length with the correct sign and reverses the (incorrect) sign of the real part. The magnitudes of the real and imaginary parts agree well with the results of recent experiments and are consistent with the existence of the Y 0 ∗ (1405) virtual bound state below the K - N threshold.


This research is a contribution in the field that formalizes the complex and fundamental link between architecture and society. It focuses on the spatial study of a new type of housing appeared in this last decade in an agropastoral area of Algeria: the eastern Hodna. Housing whose stylistic expressions are diverse and at the same time opposed to the local rural architectural references and to the habits and customs of a semi-nomadic society which is recently established.
Former nomads, people of Hodna moved from an ambulant habitat: the tent commonly called "Guittoune", passing through several other types more or less endogenous to a new type of domestic house-castle named "Diar charpenti ", in a relatively short period of time. Indeed, the socio-economic and political mutations reflected in particular by the liberalization of foreign trade, by encouraging the private sector and by the dramatic situation experienced by Algeria in the 1990s, have promoted fundamental changes not only in the socio-economic but also urban and architectural fields, across the country, particularly in the eastern region of Hodna. Fuelled by the economic boom generated by the anarchic economy developed during the period of political instability, by a certain population group: the barons of the informal, this region has been subjected to an accelerated process of change at all levels that allowed the creation of a new physical environment materialized by a domestic architectural framework that has little in common with its predecessor.
The purpose of this research is to try to understand if this domestic housing, unlike that reveals its facades, could maintain, at its spatiality, a unit that could be identified as architectural genotype. And if, this or these architectural genotypes maintained any relationship with the local domestic architecture of the region.
Through its two-part of analysis, this research used two analytical approaches: The first, qualitative, whose foundation is the French school: the analytic-historical typology, while the second, quantitative, is from Anglo-Saxon: the space syntax or "configurational analysis" by Bill Hillier and Julienne Hanson (1984, 1987, 1996, 1998).
The results of this research are derived on the one hand, from typological classification of canonical types of domestic housing experienced by the study area since the second half of the nineteenth century, date of settlement of its inhabitants, to the last decade of the 2000s; On the other hand, from the exhaustive analysis of different specimens constituting the corpus of this new type of dwelling "Diar Charpenti". Following these two steps, the comparison could be made and the answer to the generic question: would there be a local spatial referencial model to this new type of housing? could be elucidated.
Typological analysis revealed that the "Diar Charpenti" type was preceded by six other domestic types which are divided into two physical models of living: the courtyard house and the house with corridor. Analysis of Space Syntax has revealed the existence of two main modes of structuring the spaces: the lobby "Westeddar" and the corridor "Sabet" that subdivide the "Diar Charpenti" in seven genotypes and a phenotype not genotypic.
The comparison revealed that the "Diar Charpenti" type is in a large majority a spatial descendant of ancestral domestic models with which they form a genotype of inequality. Here, the syntactic comparison proved that the current lobby is indeed the covered version of the courtyard of yore: A morpho-creator scheme. In its social aspect, space syntax has demonstrated that through its space, the society of Hodna is a society that is growing in segregation and folds on itself, the domestic space of this new domestic type is sexed and binary, indicates a considerable "socio-spatial" confusion, gives the impression of being evolutionary, but is frozen in fact. What "Diar Charpenti" houses express is not a new way of living, but instead a new way to express themselves.


In this article, I ask what might be the effect of international trade on interstate conflict in Asia and the Pacific. Overall, the associations of trade interdependence and trade volume in the region appear similar to those globally: interdependence is accompanied by a reduction in the chance of militarized conflict onset, whereas the volume of trade appears to reduce the chance of conflict escalation to deadly international violence. I suggest a partial exception for East Asia, implying weaker associations between trade and pacific outcomes. I argue that the regionally common 'developmental state' model allows such states to more freely, but less credibly, use trade as a foreign policy tool, reducing trade's constraint upon East Asian states in security affairs. Analyses of East Asian dyads and of developmental states in data from all regions of the globe support my contention that trade interdependence has weaker pacific effects in these contexts, although some other expectations are not supported.


In this research, experimental studies were performed to examine the rheological behavior of equimolar solutions of cetylpyridinium chloride (CPyCl) and sodium salicylate (NaSal) solutions with concentration. The surfactant solutions were prepared by dissolving 2 mM/2 mM - 80 mM/80 mM of surfactant/counterion in double-distilled water. It has been observed that the zero shear viscosity shows abrupt changes at two critical values of C * and C ** . These changes are caused by the switching of relaxation mechanism with concentration of CPyCl/NaSal solutions at those concentrations. The wall slip velocities of dilute and semidilute CPyCl/NaSal solutions show a dramatic increase with shear rate where the shear viscosity exhibits shear thickening behavior for dilute solutions and shear thinning behavior for semi-dilute solutions, respectively. Considering that the dramatic increase in wall slip velocity should be related to the formation of shear-induced structure (SIS) in the surfactant solution, the shear thickening behavior of semi-dilute solutions is caused by elastic instability unlike the case of dilute solutions.


Elsewhere in this issue, Raddish et al 1 report their study of the immunization status of children attending the Boston (Mass) Children's Hospital spina bifida clinic. Eighty percent of the children received their first diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and pertussis and oral poliovirus vaccines on time. At 24 months of age, only 58% had received four diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and pertussis, three oral poliovirus, and one measles-mumps-rubella vaccinations. At 7 years of age, 81% had received a total of these eight immunizations. Risk factors for under-immunization included being insured by Medicaid and having a mother with 12 years of school or less. In sum, children at all age levels attending this clinic were less well immunized than the general Massachusetts population and shared common risk factors for underimmunization. The authors note that these dismal results are even more remarkable because the study families had higher incomes than the state's


The environment, energy and climate are transboundary issues that require cooperative action to sustainably address. To meet our energy requirements, both the UK and Europe are heavily reliant on energy imports. As international concerns rise over the impacts of climate change and over increasing levels of geopolitical unrest, UK Government energy policy must balance the need for competitive energy prices, with the requirements to ensure security of supply and to achieve environmental sustainability. Much of the UK's environmental policy and legislation derives from EU Directives. Some sectors of industry may argue that this imposes a burden on their business, whilst others may argue that it leads to stability of Government policies and that it enables long-term decision-making and investment. Environmental groups do contend that European Directives provide a much-needed safety net, to protect the environment over timescales longer than a UK electoral cycle. This safety net is particularly effective because the successful implementation of EU Directives must be evidenced, protecting the progress of these policies, particularly during periods of financial stress.As part of a larger grouping of countries, negotiations on the world stage (such as climate negotiations) can be conducted with more authority than would be possible as an individual country, since the countries represented by the EU collectively represent a larger proportion of the global population, and account for a larger proportion of consumption and emissions. Cross-European R&D projects have a wider geographical scope, cover a broader range of environments and draw upon a larger pool of skills and researchers than would be possible if projects were centred within a single country. Such projects are facilitated by a number of EU mechanisms– though it is possible that non-EU countries can gain access to EU research activities, e.g. through associate country status.The implications for energy, environment and climate, of a move to leave the European Union are not clear. It is clear, however, that environmental policy in the UK has historically been driven by European legislation, that the UK is deeply embedded within the European energy market, and that the UK (and European) economies are heavily reliant on energy imports. Whatever the UK decides, it is critical that improved energy security remains a Government priority, and that we adopt a move towards a fully integrated energy, environmental and climate policy.


The catalytic oxidation of 1,3,5-trimethylbenzene (T135MB), which is a simple model of aromatic hydrocarbons, was investigated with a newly designed catalytic jet-stirred reactor (CJSR) equipped with gas chromatography and FTIR at low temperature. Thin film of pure CuO was synthesized at 325 °C using one-step pulsed-spray evaporation chemical vapor deposition. To better understand the interplay between properties and catalytic performances, the obtained catalysts were characterized in terms of crystalline phase, morphology and surface composition. The catalytic performance based on light-off curves revealed that CuO deposited on mesh of stainless steel presented a very high activity against the complete oxidation of T135MB at 330 °C. The induced catalytic effect is attributed to the open porosity, abundance of surface small grain size, adsorbed oxygen of CuO, and the long residence time provided by the newly designed CJSR. Moreover, a possible mechanism was proposed for the complete oxidation of T135MB in CJSR. Accordingly, the combined diagnostic method involving the novel designed CJSR and efficient analysis devices is expected to assist in further understanding of the abatement of complex gaseous pollutants with avoiding high toxic byproducts paving the way for clean combustion applications.


Disc brakes have been used for many years in automobiles and are still
undergoing further development in terms of the temperatures that they can reach
and operate safely at. Many methods have been introduced in the past to simulate
and predict the temperature history of the disc brake, such as lumped analysis,
one-dimensional analytical method and numerical method for analysis in 2-D or
3-D. These numerical simulations range from finite differences to finite elements,
each with a variety of assumptions.
In this paper, we show that the method of order-of-magnitude analysis,
originally proposed by Ludwig Prandtl in his analysis of fluid flow and boundary
layers, could be advantageously applied to the study of temperature distribution
in disc brakes. The governing equations are formulated in their entirety sans
simplifying assumptions, as a 3-D transient problem, in the axial, radial and
peripheral directions, also accounting for enthalpy flow and fin effect. The
equations are then normalized with respect to variables of physical significance in
the problem. The normalized equations are then examined for the order of
magnitude of the coefficients of the terms in order to determine their relative
importance. This approach has been applied with success in fluid flow,
convective heat transfer and transient conduction.
The results of the analysis of a disc brake based on the order-of-magnitude
approach are compared with previously obtained solutions in the literature and
found to have very good agreement. The value of the method is that, even
without a physical understanding of the underlying phenomena, it is possible to
make appropriate problem simplifications and get efficient solutions. Further, the
analysis has the potential to be extended to include thermal cracking, warping and
thermal stress in the disc brake.


Your friend down in the emergency department (ED) has a patient arriving in a few minutes who was assaulted in a local prison. After asking for your potential assistance with his airway and mumbling something about a knife, he hangs up. You've been working nonstop since yesterday morning, so the only thing on your mind involves a pillow and the supine position. Nevertheless, you make your way down to the ED and arrive just as the medics roll in with their patient. He is awake and yelling as they roll him by you into the trauma bay. The emergency medical technician is applying pressure to the side of the patient's neck and there is a large knife sticking out of the middle of the patient's face (Figure 1). Your friend takes one look and asks you to help by managing the airway while he coordinates the rest of the trauma resuscitation. It looks like your night is about to get a lot more interesting!


Abstract Images of Gaspra obtained during the October 1991 Galileo flyby have been used to derive a shape model of the asteroid. Gaspra is a highly irregular object with principal diameters of 18.2, 10.5, and 8.9 km and a mean radius of 6.1 km. Assuming that the mass distribution is homogeneous, the rotation axis (RA = 9.5°, Dec = +26.7°)is aligned with the maximum moment of inertia given the estimated uncertainties in the model and pole. The mean radius, axial ratios, and pole orientation derived from the Galileo data agree closely with values inferred from groundbased observations. Gaspra's shape is defined in part by extensive flat areas and large, shallow concavities up to 10 km wide. One of the flat areas is about 6 km across, and defines a plane within ±0.2 km. In terms of limb roughness and the size of concavities, Gaspra's shape is moderately more irregular than those of well-imaged small satellites. Patterns of grooves, ridges, and flat surfaces suggest the presence of a global structural grain. Such a structural pattern is consistent with Gaspra being a single object derived from a substantially larger precursor body by collisional fragmentation; it is difficult to reconcile with hypotheses that Gaspra is a binary object or a collection of smaller bodies.


BACKGROUND
In South Africa, canine babesiosis typically is an acute disease in susceptible individuals and is a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Despite the importance of the disease, there have been no large studies that have examined the influence of breed and sex on disease susceptibility.

HYPOTHESIS
Toy breeds have a lower risk of babesiosis than working dogs.

ANIMALS
A total of 1,222 dogs diagnosed with canine babesiosis and 11,484 noninfected dogs presented to the Onderstepoort Veterinary Academic Hospital's small animal outpatient clinic between 2004 and 2010.

METHODS
Retrospective study.

RESULTS
Intact male, neutered male, and neutered female dogs had a significantly higher odds of being diagnosed with canine babesiosis compared to intact female dogs. Five of the 6 Toy breeds had significantly lower odds of being diagnosed with canine babesiosis than did the reference breed, Labrador Retrievers. In contrast, none of the 8 working dog breeds had significantly lower odds compared to the reference breed.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL IMPORTANCE
Intact male, neutered male, and neutered female dogs were at increased risk of canine babesiosis compared to intact female dogs. Several dog breeds, notably Toy breeds, had a lower risk of babesiosis in a hospital population of dogs in South Africa. The mechanism or mechanisms by which Toy breeds are protected from developing canine babesiosis may be related to genetic background or environmental exposure and deserves further study.


Half of the 2.6 million veterans identify difficulty in transitioning back to civilian life after deployment (Chandrasekaren, 2014). With at least twenty percent of OEF/OIF veterans returning being diagnosed with PTSD and or Depression the need for connection to reduce isolation is high (Tanielian, Jaycox, 2008). Additionally, participation in Veteran Service Organizations like the VFW and American Legion are down over thirty percent (Montgomery, 2014). This project works to identify what is working in some of the Minneapolis and St. Paul posts to increase participation and what might be interfering with participation members. The study was conducted by talking with leaders in posts about the outreaches they are doing for veterans. Recruitment of active military, discounted membership, and integration of OEF/OIF veterans in transitioning the building were discovered as ways to increase participation. Whereas, the bar, misconception of benefits, and privacy laws were seen as interfering with participation increase. Participation in Veteran Service Organizations 2 Table of


The analysis of data in which multiple languages are represented has gained popularity among computational linguists in recent years. So far, much of this research focuses mainly on the improvement of computational methods and largely ignores linguistic and social aspects of C-S discussed across a wide range of languages within the long-established literature in linguistics. To fill this gap, we offer a survey of code-switching (C-S) covering the literature in linguistics with a reflection on the key issues in language technologies. From the linguistic perspective, we provide an overview of structural and functional patterns of C-S focusing on the literature from European and Indian contexts as highly multilingual areas. From the language technologies perspective, we discuss how massive language models fail to represent diverse C-S types due to lack of appropriate training data, lack of robust evaluation benchmarks for C-S (across multilingual situations and types of C-S) and lack of end-to- end systems that cover sociolinguistic aspects of C-S as well. Our survey will be a step to- wards an outcome of mutual benefit for computational scientists and linguists with a shared interest in multilingualism and C-S.


Abstract Despite the considerable knowledge gained of the patterns and processes shaping the completeness and fidelity of fossil bivalve faunas, it is still hard to generalize these patterns to the species level and to different regions around the globe. Here I analyze the completeness and fidelity of Quaternary bivalve faunas of the temperate Pacific coast of South America, summarizing >120 years of paleontological studies in the region. The degree of completeness, measured as percentage of extant forms, is only moderate. Only 45% of the 93 extant species are preserved in the Quaternary fossil record. When completeness was measured as the discoverable fraction of species (according to a non-parametric richness estimation), however, values were >88%. Missing species were not biased by shell mineralogy nor concentrated in particular taxonomic groups. Completeness was highly selective for other species traits; small size, geographic restriction, and forms inhabiting deeper areas of the shelf had lower chances of being present in the fossil record, in agreement with previous studies. A generalized linear model revealed that the effect of these variables was multiplicative—i.e., the effects of geographic range and bathymetric distribution were significant only for small-sized forms. Therefore, the moderate degree of completeness may be the consequence of a limited fossilization potential (e.g., via low preservation potential, lack of deep-shelf outcrops, or preburial down-slope transport), rather than poor sampling quality. Results suggest that the sampling effort made in the region has reached a plateau and that further progress in the completeness of species' inventories may occur only at a very slow rate.


Adiponectin circulates in human plasma mainly as a 180-kDa low molecular weight (LMW) hexamer and a high molecular weight (HMW) multimer of approximately 360 kDa. We comprehensively examined the relationships between circulating levels of total adiponectin, adiponectin multimers, and the relative distribution (i.e., ratio) of multimeric forms with key features of the metabolic syndrome. Total adiponectin (r = 0.45), HMW (r = 0.47), LMW (r = 0.31), and HMW-to-total adiponectin ratio (r = 0.29) were significantly correlated with insulin-stimulated glucose disposal rate. Similarly, total (r = -0.30), HMW (r = -0.38), and HMW-to-total adiponectin ratio (r = -0.34) were correlated with central fat distribution but not with total fat mass or BMI. Regarding energy metabolism, although there were no effects on resting metabolic rate, total (r = 0.41) and HMW (r = 0.44) were associated with increasing rates of fat oxidation. HMW-to-total adiponectin ratio increased as a function of total adiponectin, and it was HMW quantity (not total or HMW-to-total adiponectin ratio or LMW) that was primarily responsible for all of these relationships. Impact on nuclear magnetic resonance lipoprotein subclasses was assessed. HMW and total adiponectin were correlated with decreases in large VLDL (r = -0.44 and -0.41); decreases in small LDL (r = -0.41 and -0.36) and increases in large LDL (r = 0.36 and 0.30) particle concentrations accompanied by increased LDL particle size (r = 0.47 and 0.39); and increases in large HDL (r = 0.45 and 0.37) and HDL particle size (r = 0.53 and 0.47). Most of these correlations persisted after adjustment for metabolic covariables. In conclusion, first, serum adiponectin is associated with increased insulin sensitivity, reduced abdominal fat, and high basal lipid oxidation; however, it is HMW quantity, not total or HMW-to-total adiponectin ratio, that is primarily responsible for these relationships. Second, reduced quantities of HMW independently recapitulate the lipoprotein subclass profile associated with insulin resistance after correcting for glucose disposal rate and BMI. Finally, HMW adiponectin is an important factor in explaining the metabolic syndrome.


The major purpose of this study was to determine the business courses which help the school superintendent and high school principal to better administer their school. A questionnaire was sent to ninety-four school administrators in Kansas who had a bachelor's degree in business. Sixty-one of these administrators completed the questionnaire and forty-seven and five tenths percent named accounting as the course which helped them most in school administration. Business administration was named second, personnel management was third, and typing was named fourth. Other courses, such as business law, selling and sales administration, and money and banking, were named by a much smaller percentage of the respondents. It was the conclusion of this study that business might be a good background for the prospective school administrator and that prospective school administrators be advised to enroll in some accounting, business administration, personnel management, and typing courses. Further research is recommended in undergraduate majors other than business, especially in the social science and the science field. After research is done in these two areas significant comparison can be made between the fields of business, social science, and science as this comprises approximately 57 percent of the present school administrator's undergraduate majors.


The late nineteenth century saw an unparalleled revolution in warship development as the Victorian navy found itself grappling with intense technical change to ensure its survival in the modern theatre. From the wooden battleships of the 1800s, naval architecture underwent great change to produce a very different form of capital ship, which would have a huge impact and change naval design forever. The pre-dreadnought was constructed of steel, wholly driven by steam power and carried its rifled ordnance in armoured turrets operated by hydraulics. Electrics, mechanical computers, mines and torpedo weapons were also utilised to create an immensely powerful fighting ship the likes of which had never been seen before. This well-illustrated and fascinating history reveals the process involved in that most rapid development, which in such a short time totally altered the naval forces of Britain and ensured that the British Navy remained the most powerful in the world.


A partial skeleton attributed to Proconsul nyanzae (KNM-MW 13142) is described. The fossils were found at a site on Mfangano Island, Kenya, which dates to 17.9 +/- .1 million years ago. KNM-MW 13142 consists of six partial vertebrae (T12-S1), a nearly complete hipbone, most of the right femur and left femoral shaft, a fragmentary tibia and fibula, and a nearly complete talus and calcaneus. This skeleton provides the first pelvic fossil known for any East African Miocene hominoid. The new Proconsul specimen is compared to a large sample of extant anthropoids to determine its functional and phylogenetic affinities. In most aspects of its anatomy, KNM-MW 13142 closely resembles nonhominoid anthropoids. This individual had a long, flexible spine, narrow torso, and habitually pronograde posture, features characteristic of most extant monkeys. Evidence of spinal musculature suggests a generalized condition intermediate between that of cercopithecoids and hylobatids. The hindlimb of KNM-MW 13142 exhibits relatively mobile hip and ankle joints, with structural properties of the femur like those of hominoids. This mix of features implies a pattern of posture and locomotion that is unlike that of any extant primate. Many aspects of the Proconsul nyanzae locomotor skeleton may represent the primitive catarrhine condition.


Abstract. Over the past decades, X-ray computed tomography (CT) has been increasingly applied in the geosciences community. CT scanning is a rapid, non-destructive method allowing the assessment of relative density of clasts in natural archives samples. This study focuses on the use of this method to explore instantaneous deposits as major contributors to sedimentation of high-elevation lakes in the Alps, such as the Lake Lauvitel system (western French Alps). This lake is located within a very steep valley prone to episodic flooding and features gullies ending in the lake. This variety of erosion processes leads to deposition of sedimentary layers with distinct clastic properties. We identified 18 turbidites and 15 layers of poorly sorted fine sediment associated with the presence of gravels since AD 1880. These deposits are respectively interpreted as being induced by flood and wet avalanche. This constitutes a valuable record from a region where few historical records exist. This CT scan approach is suitable for instantaneous deposit identification to reconstruct past evolution and may be applicable to a wider variety of sedimentary archives alongside existing approaches.


Changes in Beliefs about Aggression in Baton Rouge Youth Peace Olympics Participants by Shonta D. Manuel MPH, Benedictine University, 2010 BS, Southern University and A&M College, 2001 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Public Health Walden University August 2018 Abstract Youth violence in the Baton Rouge inner-city area continues to create heightened concerns for the communities as well as the financial and healthcare systems. Even though violence prevention programs are in place in the area, no decline has been recorded in those who are being affected by violence. Due to lack of research in thisYouth violence in the Baton Rouge inner-city area continues to create heightened concerns for the communities as well as the financial and healthcare systems. Even though violence prevention programs are in place in the area, no decline has been recorded in those who are being affected by violence. Due to lack of research in this field, a need for a sound research study exists to understand how Youth Peace Olympics (YPO) community-based program may be related to changes in attitudes about aggression and violence. A correlational cross-sectional research design was used to evaluate participants' beliefs about aggression, measured using the Normative Beliefs about Aggression instrument by the organization at the beginning and end of the summer program, in addition to secondary data that was provided to me (n=50). Social cognitive theory and the social development model were used as the theoretical framework for the study. Results showed a statistically significant decrease in retaliation approval of aggression scores (pretest M = 2.24, posttest M = 1.91; t[49] = 4.07, p =.000) and marginal statistically significant decrease in general approval of aggression scores (pretest M = 1.48, posttest M = 1.31; t[49] = 1.96, p = .055). Age, gender, and ethnicity were not found to be related to pretest attitudes or pretest/posttest changes in attitudes regarding retaliation approval or general approval of aggression at statistically significant levels. The potential for positive social change is to provide researchers and communitylevel stakeholders with preliminary program evaluation data related to attitudes about aggression/violence approval. Changes in Beliefs about Aggression in Baton Rouge Youth Peace Olympics Participants by Shonta D. Manuel MPH, Benedictine University, 2010 BS, Southern University and A&M College, 2001 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Public Health


Human-Computer Interaction draws on the fields of computer science, psychology, cognitive science, and organisational and social sciences in order to understand how people use and experience interactive technology. Until now, researchers have been forced to return to the individual subjects to learn about research methods and how to adapt them to the particular challenges of HCI. This is the first book to provide a single resource through which a range of commonly used research methods in HCI are introduced. Chapters are authored by internationally leading HCI researchers who use examples from their own work to illustrate how the methods apply in an HCI context. Each chapter also contains key references to help researchers find out more about each method as it has been used in HCI. Topics covered include experimental design, use of eyetracking, qualitative research methods, cognitive modelling, how to develop new methodologies and writing up your research.


This paper proposes to address the need for more innovation in organisational information security by adding a security requirement engineering focus. Based on the belief that any heavyweight security requirements process in organisational security will be doomed to fail, we developed a security requirement approach with three dimensions. The use of a simple security requirements process in the first dimension has been augmented by an agile security approach. However, introducing this second dimension of agile security does provide support for, but does not necessarily stimulate, innovation. A third dimension is, therefore, needed to ensure there is a proper focus in the organisation's efforts to identify potential new innovations in their security. To create this focus three common shortcomings in organisational information security have been identified. The resulting security approach that addresses these shortcomings is called Ubiquitous Information Security. This paper will demonstrate the potential of this new approach by briefly discussing its possible application in two areas: Ubiquitous Identity Management and Ubiquitous Wireless Security.


The article analyses the methodological approaches of social work theory, based on various sciences. It lists the differences of social, psychological and complex models, looking for the reasons of people's social problems and planning the ways of solving them. Different theoretical models are not being analyzed in terms of their value as being more suitable or less suitable. Their application depends on the peculiarities of people's social situations. The article treats social work as a young interdisciplinary applied science, the theory of which is still in the stage of creation, and the place of which in the system of social sciences has not settled yet.


In order to find out the long-term deformation behavior of MgO concrete,the nearly 10 years prototype observation data of Dongfeng arch dam foundation is analyzed. The results show that the MgO concrete has excellent delayed micro-expansion character, and its long-term expansive deformation always tends to stable level without any trend to contraction or infinite expansion, and by adding appropriate MgO expanding agent which was calcined at some high temperature into concrete, the cracking resistance of the concrete is improved. It is an effective way to construct dams excellently, efficiently and economically by using MgO concrete technology.


We present and characterize a multi-host epidemic model of Rift Valley fever (RVF) virus in East Africa with geographic spread on a network, rule-based mitigation measures, and mosquito infection and population dynamics. Susceptible populations are depleted by disease and vaccination and are replenished with the birth of new animals. We observe that the severity of the epidemics is strongly correlated with the duration of the rainy season and that even severe epidemics are abruptly terminated when the rain stops. Because naturally acquired herd immunity is established, total mortality across 25 years is relatively insensitive to many mitigation approaches. Strong reductions in cattle mortality are expected, however, with sufficient reduction in population densities of either vectors or susceptible (ie. unvaccinated) hosts. A better understanding of RVF epidemiology would result from serology surveys to quantify the importance of herd immunity in epidemic control, and sequencing of virus from representative animals to quantify the realative importance of transportation and local reservoirs in nucleating yearly epidemics. Our results suggest that an effective multi-layered mitigation strategy would include vector control, movement control, and vaccination of young animals yearly, even in the absence of expected rainfall.


Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist depicts the protagonist's hunt for treasure which is highly symbolic of the spiritual quest for self-realization and self-discovery. Motivated by the recurring dream of a hidden treasure and desirous of bringing meaning to his life, Santiago undertakes a journey. This paper contends that his journey towards the realization of his dream actually involves a psychological process of individuation that integrates the contrasting aspects of the human psyche and makes use of the unconscious as conscious. It is an attempt to analyze his physical travels from a psychoanalytic perspective so as to posit that seeking spirituality is more about psychological change than temporal and spatial mobility. This investigation is, in fact, based on the exploration of how Coelho's protagonist completes this process of wholeness and it draws on the theory of individuation presented by Swiss Psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung. By using Jungian Archetypal method of analysis, it can be seen that Santiago is very much influenced by operative archetypes, the acceptance and integration of which has an impact on his spiritual development. The realization that the physical treasure lies exactly where he initiated his journey is the consequence of his self-actualization.


This research investigates the apparent under-representation of 'white working class' (WWC) men in British Universities through a Kirklees case study. The research explores the relevance of the use of the concept 'WWC' in relation to educational experience, the perceived constraints identified amongst the worst off within this category and the effect this may have on university progression. Particularly amongst those boys on free school meals (FSM), constraints identified were the idea of a feminised education, aspirations and awareness.
The literature review explores the background behind the under-representation amongst those categorised as 'WWC', including exploring the factual background and policy landscape. It also explores the breadth of constraints faced in university progression, predominantly amongst those on FSMs. It concludes with the firm position that the 'WWC' conception is inappropriate and there is too much focus by politicians, the media and charities on the ethnic dimension of under-representation amongst those categorised as 'WWC'. Stating also that constraints do exist amongst part of the 'WWC', this is at the lower end of the social class scale however.
This research centres Kirklees as a case study, in which 11 key informants were interviewed in order to identify key knowledge in regard to the perceived 'WWC' under-representation within British Universities. Through thematic coding key themes appeared in the data, highlighting the shared perception amongst the key informants in regard to the constraints witnessed by those classed as 'WWC', specifically witnessed by those on FSMs.
The research concludes stating that the wide remit of what it means to be 'WWC' renders the concept unsuitable in understanding educational experience. Whilst there are constraints in accessing university within the 'WWC' category, this is overwhelmingly amongst those in receipt of FSMs.


This thesis seeks to engage with and give answers to the fundamental question of rights interpretation confronting the British judiciary under the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA). As a premise, it recognises that the textual openness and consequential semantic uncertainty of the requirements of the Convention rights necessitates their interpretation. In determining the approach the courts should apply, this thesis takes as its structural foundation an analysis of the current approach of the domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to the five pivotal questions of interpretation: who has rights, the substantive nature of those rights, how rights are to be weighted and balanced in cases of conflict, whether they are rights under a will or an interest conception, and against whom the rights are held?

From this basis, the thesis builds upon the existing knowledge to apply Alan Gewirth's Principle of Generic Consistency (PGC) to the current judicial position, to critique its compatibility with this principle's requirements. Through analysis of core settled characteristics of the Convention rights, the substance of the courts' judgements and the ECtHR's jurisprudence, and supported by both dialectically necessary and contingent arguments, it is ultimately argued that it is, theoretically and practically, both necessary and possible for the domestic courts to be guided by the PGC in their interpretive approach.

Finally, an improved understanding of the principle of human dignity will be advocated as a means through which the domestic courts can apply the PGC's requirements. By this means, this thesis ultimately proposes an interpretive approach to the Convention rights which gives compelling guidance in answering the fundamental questions of rights interpretation and, by encouraging direct principled engagement with these questions, increases the public understanding of the fundamental nature of rights and the acceptability of the HRA and judgements under it.


From 1810 with the publication of the first charts of the Louisiana Purchase, to 1848 with the celebration of the Mexican cession, leading U.S. cartographers like John Melish, Henry S. Tanner, S. Augustus Mitchell, and others marshaled their empirical and romantic skillsets to engage willfully and consciously in the work of empire-building. Instead of presenting static and impartial displays of geographic information, they were self-conscious and unashamed visionaries who manipulated and sometimes invented geographies, outlining the "sketchy" places with aggressive borders and labels and filling in the "silences" with make-believe topographies and hydrographies. They professed the revelation of natural designs that forecasted grand and prosperous futures. As powerful, yet fictive, expressions of dominion, maps significantly impacted the way many Americans viewed their national destiny, enticed by the geographic vocabularies that masked their chauvinisms and avarice by normalizing their territorial ambitions as natural, providential, and inevitable.


Sago industry is an important industry in East Malaysia (mainly Sarawak). Sago starch is produced as an alternative carbohydrate source in the food chain. To produce one tonne of sago starch, a minimum of 20 tonnes of sago wastewater would be generated. In order to comply with local regulation and to reduce environmental impacts, the produced wastewater requires proper wastewater treatment (WWT). However, with several WWT technologies available in the market, this becomes a challenge for decision makers to select WWT technologies with minimum investment cost while meeting discharge regulations. As shown in the previous research works, the investment cost can be minimised by reducing the resources used. This can be done by reused and recycled the treated water within the processes. Apart from this, the cost for waste (sludge cake) generation should be minimised since the sludge cake will not bring any value to the WWT plant. This can be addressed by using the concept of Material Flow Cost Accounting (MFCA). MFCA is a management tool which quantifies material flows across a production process in both physical and monetary values. The application of MFCA had been adapted in previous research works to prioritise waste streams for waste recovery and to reduce investment costs for WWT plants. In this work, MFCA is further extended to a more comprehensive and realistic WWT plant optimisation, taking into account of sludge treatment. The proposed MFCA can determine the monetary value associated with sludge cake production within the WWT plant. To illustrate the proposed approach, a sago-based WWT plant is solved in this work.


Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is more common and more lethal among patients over the age of 60. Increased body mass index (BMI) has been associated with a higher incidence of various malignancies, including AML. We sought to determine whether patient BMI at the time of AML diagnosis is related to overall survival (OS) among elderly patients. We identified 97 patients with AML diagnosed after the age of 60 and treated with cytarabine‐based induction chemotherapy. The median age was 68 years (range 60–87); 52% of patients were male, and our study population was predominantly white (89% of patients). The median OS for all patients was 316 days (95% CI 246–459). The hazard ratio for mortality was increased among patients with a BMI < 25 compared to BMI ≥ 30 (HR 2.14, P = 0.009, 95% CI 1.21–3.77), as well as with older age (HR 1.76, P = 0.015, 95% CI 1.12–2.79) and with secondary versus de novo disease (HR 1.95, P = 0.006, 95% CI 1.21–3.14). After multivariable analysis, we did not find a significant association between OS and other potential confounders such as coronary artery disease or diabetes among these patients. We conclude that increased BMI was independently associated with improved OS among older AML patients at our institution. Am. J. Hematol. 88:642–646, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


We present a comparative analysis of the performance of state-of-the-art sound event detection systems. In particular, we study the robustness of the systems to noise and signal degradation, which is known to impact model generalization. Our analysis is based on the results of task 4 of the DCASE 2019 challenge, where submitted systems were evaluated on, in addition to real-world recordings, a series of synthetic soundscapes that allow us to carefully control for different soundscape characteristics. Our results show that while overall systems exhibit significant improvements compared to previous work, they still suffer from biases that could prevent them from generalizing to real-world scenarios.


Crustal-penetrating seismic reflection data across the ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) Dabie Shan orogen show that the Yangtze craton was subducted beneath the Sino-Korean craton, forming a bivergent orogenic fabric strikingly similar to "normal" (non-UHP) collision belts. Hence preservation of UHP minerals (coesite and diamond) may be unrelated to differences between collisional histories, but may be due to opportunities for subsequent intracrustal uplift of material that is routinely returned from mantle depths into the lower crust in most collisional orogens. Only a narrow channel (≤5 km) now exists from the mantle into the crust through which UHP material was returned to lower-crustal depths as thin slabs. We image the Dabie Shan as a crustal-scale dome formed during postcollisional intracrustal uplift by core-complex-type exhumation of the lower crust, tectonically unrelated to the earlier exhumation from >100 km to <35-40 km.


The pilot diesel quantity (mpilot) has an impact on the liqueified nitrogen gas (LNG)-diesel dual-fuel engine, but it is very difficult for a dual-fuel engine with the traditional injection system to adjust mpilot to meet various operating conditions in practice. In recent years, with great progress in common rail diesel injection technology, mpilot can be adjusted accurately by the electronic control system, which is an advantage for operation with the diesel–LNG dual-fuel. In order to optimize mpilot of the diesel–LNG dual-fuel engine, the combustion and performance of a dual-fuel engine with the mpilot of 5.05 mg/cyc, 5.20 mg/cyc, 5.69 mg/cyc, 6.31 mg/cyc and 6.91 mg/cyc under 50% load at speed of 1600 r/min were analyzed. Experimental results show that, with an increase in mpilot, the maximum in-cylinder pressure, rate of pressure rise, and heat release rate of dual-fuel obviously increase, the crank angles of the maximum value move forward, and the combustion duration becomes shorter. The mean value of peak in-cylinder pressure (pmax) increases obviously while the standard deviation of it decreases, and the distribution of that focuses. The mean value of the crank angle corresponding to pmax pressure decreases except for the mpilot of 5.05 mg/cyc, while the standard deviation of that gradually decreases, the distribution of it focuses and moves forward. The brake power increases while the brake-specific fuel consumption (BSFC) decreases, the CO and HC decrease, while the CO2, NOx, and smoke density emissions increase.


With the fast growth of wireless communications between nodes/sensor units, devices installed in remote places require continuously energy supply for their functionality or communication requirements. For these applications energy harvesting takes place as a good solution to increase the availability of energy, in opposition to the conventional systems of energy supply. Regenerative energy sources like thermoelectric, magnetic, piezoelectric, and/or renewable sources such as photovoltaic and wind, among others, allowed the development of different powering solutions for sensor units. The purpose of this work is to characterize a three-phase micro generator that is used to convert the energy extracted from wind or water flow, among others mechanical energy sources, to electrical energy. The study is carried out taking into account the velocity of axis versus power provided to a load.


Products of Gaussian noises often emerge as the result of non-linear detection techniques or as parasitic effects, and their proper handling is important in many practical applications, including fluctuation-enhanced sensing, indoor air or environmental quality monitoring, etc. We use Rice's random phase oscillator formalism to calculate the power density spectra variance for the product of two Gaussian band-limited white noises with zero-mean and the same bandwidth W. The ensuing noise spectrum is found to decrease linearly from zero frequency to 2W, and it is zero for frequencies greater than 2W. Analogous calculations performed for the square of a single Gaussian noise confirm earlier results. The spectrum at non-zero frequencies, and the variance of the square of a noise, is amplified by a factor two as a consequence of correlation effects between frequency products. Our analytic results are corroborated by computer simulations.


Two-dimensional periodic waves beneath an elastic sheet resting on the surface of an infinitely deep fluid are investigated using a high-order series-expansion technique. The solution is found to have certain features in common with capillary-gravity waves; specifically, there is a countably infinite set of values of the flexural rigidity of the sheet at which the series solution fails, and these values are conjectured to be bifurcation points of the solution. Limiting waves of maximum height are found at each value of the flexural rigidity investigated. These are characterized by a cusp singularity in the elastic bending moment at the wave crest, and infinite fluid pressure there. For at least one value of the flexural rigidity, the series solution shows that the wave of maximum height also travels with infinite speed.


Aim: 1-To evaluate the various hematological parameters ,CRP, quantitative and qualitative changes in neutrophil and to identify causative organism of sepsis by blood culture . Method: To evaluate the hematological parameters we used 5 part cell counter and peripheral smear stained with leishman stain, for CRP was done by latex kit method and to identify the causative organism we did blood culture of 100 neonates admitted in NICU in Shyam shah medical college and associated Sanjay Gandhi hospital. Results: In my study out of 100 sample sensitivity of total WBC count is 51.7 %, specificity is 66.6%, positive predictive value is 68% and negative predictive value is 50% The Sensitivity of absolute neutrophil count is observed to be 70.6% and specificity is 85.7%. Positive predictive value of the test is 87.2% and negative predictive value is 68%. Sensitivity of I:TNR is 89.6%, specificity is 73.8%, positive predictive value is 82.5% and negative predictive value is 83.7%1. Sensitivity of platelet count is 48.2%, specificity is 80.9%, positive predictive value is 77.7% and negative predictive value is 53.1%. Sensitivity of CRP is 70.6%, specificity is 78.5%, positive predictive value is 82%and negative predictive value is 66%1. Sensitivity of morphological changes (presence of toxic granulation and dohle bodies) in neutrophils is 51%, specificity is 60.7%, positive predictive value is 55.5% and negative predictive value is 56.3%. In blood culture most common pathogenic organism grown is klebsiella followed by acinetobacter in our study.Conclusion:we concluded that in our study blood culture shows more sensitivity and specificity to diagnose neonatal septicemia but ittakes 48 to 72 hours to give result on the other hand TLC, ANC, I:TNR,Platelet count,CRP and morphological changes in neutrophils gives early result and altogether give better sensitivity and specificity to diagnose neonatal septicemia.