The mechanism of general flowering in Dipterocarpaceae in the Malay Peninsula is revealed through field survey and meteorological data analyses. The regions of general flowering coincide with those which experienced a low night-time temperature (LNT) c. 2 mo before flowering. This supports the hypothesis that low air temperature induces the development of floral buds of dipterocarps. LNT was found to be caused by radiative cooling during dry spells in winter when the northern subtropical ridge (STR) occasionally migrates southwards with a dry air mass into the equatorial region. LNT events usually occur in La Niña episodes, not in El Niño episodes as believed previously. This is because the southward migration of the STR is associated with the intensification of local meridional Hadley Circulation in the western Pacific, which is strengthened in a La Niña episode. Results suggest that El Niño-like climate change in increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations may be critical for the tropical rain forest biome in south-east Asia.


Background: Homozygous sickle cell patients are prone to renal damage which can be on-going in and out of crises, therefore, there is a need to monitor renal status using glomerular filtration rate. Equations to estimate GFR are readily available. Cockcroft-Gault equation is widely used, while the MDRD formula is the currently accepted equation. The CKD-EPI equation is recently being recommended but has not been validated among HbSS patients. Therefore, we aim to compare estimated GFR using CKD-EPI versus MDRD and Cockcroft-Gault equations among HbSS patients. Material and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of stable HbSS patients. Information on their age, sex, and weight was collected. Their venous blood samples were also obtained for plasma creatinine determination which was used to calculate estimated GFR using Cockcroft-Gault, MDRD and CKD-EPI equations. Student t-test, Pearson correlation, and Bland-Altman difference plots were performed. A p-value of < 0.05 was considered to be significant. Results: One hundred and twenty patients comprising 60 HbSS patients and 60 HbAA controls participated in the study. The HbSS patients had mean ± SD age of 26±6.7years, plasma creatinine 77 ± 17umol/L, eGFR: CG 93±31.6ml/min, MDRD 124 ± 34.8ml/min/1.73m2, CKD-EPI 122 ± 25.1ml/min/1.73m2 (p< 0.0001). Hyperfiltration was observed in 20(33.3%) of the HbSS patients. CKD-EPI had stronger positive correlation with MDRD (n = 60, r = 0.93) and less bias (SD = 14.7) than with CG (n = 60, r = 0.76, SD = 20). Conclusion: CKD-EPI equation is best for individuals with GFR > 60ml/min/1.73m2. This study has shown that it correlates well with the currently acceptable MDRD equation, therefore, can be used to monitor the renal status of stable HbSS patients. CG gives poor correlation and bias with CKD-EPI. Further validation studies on CKD-EPI equation are needed in different patient populations.


Human pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) in the form of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) or induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are capable of growing indefinitely in vitro , maintaining their capacity to differentiate into the three primary germ layers: mesoderm, endoderm and ectoderm. Different protocols have been developed to differentiate PSCs into almost any cellular type with different degree of success. This technology has allowed scientists to use patient‐derived iPSCs to study the physiopa‐ thology of the disease by analyzing the phenotype of the cells derived from these iPSCs. However, control iPSCs obtained from healthy individuals will always have different genomic environment than patient's iPSCs, making it difficult the interpretation of the cells phenotype. The recent appearance of specific nucleases [zinc‐finger nucleases (ZFNs), the transcription activator‐like effector nucleases (TALENs) and the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)] has made it possible to edit the genome of PSCs. We can now generate syngeneic hESCs or iPSCs harboring the desired mutation and comparing the emerging cells with those derived from genetical‐ ly identical PSCs that will differ only in the mutated gene. In this chapter, we summa‐ rize the progress made in this field and discuss the different approaches that have been used recently for the generation of syngeneic human pluripotent cellular models for different pathologies.


We present an algorithm for estimating consistent dense depth maps and camera poses from a monocular video. We integrate a learning-based depth prior, in the form of a convolutional neural network trained for single-image depth estimation, with geometric optimization, to estimate a smooth camera trajectory as well as detailed and stable depth reconstruction. Our algorithm combines two complementary techniques: (1) flexible deformation-splines for low-frequency large-scale alignment and (2) geometry-aware depth filtering for high-frequency alignment of fine depth details. In contrast to prior approaches, our method does not require camera poses as input and achieves robust reconstruction for challenging hand-held cell phone captures containing a significant amount of noise, shake, motion blur, and rolling shutter deformations. Our method quantitatively outperforms state-of-the-arts on the Sintel benchmark for both depth and pose estimations and attains favorable qualitative results across diverse wild datasets.


O'Leary's authoritative treatment of the history of Northern Ireland and its current prospects is genuinely unique. Beginning with an in-depth account of the scale of the recent conflict, he sets out to explain why Northern Ireland recently had the highest incidence of political violence in twentieth-century western Europe. Volume 1 demonstrates the salience of the colonial past in accounting for current collective mentalities, institutions, and rivalrous animosities, culminating in a distinct comparative account of the partition of the island in 1920. The major moments in the development of Irish republicanism and Ulster unionism are freshly treated by this Irish-born political scientist who has spent thirty-five years mastering the relevant historiography. Volume 2 shows how Ulster Unionists improvised a distinctive control system, driven by their fear of abandonment by the metropolitan power in Great Britain, their anxieties about Irish nationalist irredentism, and their inherited settler colonial culture. British political institutions were exploited to organize a sustained political monopoly on power and to disorganize the cultural Catholic minority. At the same juncture, the Irish Free State's punctuated movement from restricted dominion-level autonomy to sovereign republican independence led to the full-scale political decolonization of the South. Irish state-building had a price, however: it further estranged Ulster Unionists, and Northern nationalists felt abandoned. Volume 3 unpacks the consequences and takes the reader to the present, explaining Northern Ireland's distinctive consociational settlement, accomplished in 1998, and its subsequently turbulent and currently imperiled implementation. An assessment of the confederation of European Union and the prospects for an Irish confederation close the book, which vividly engages with feasible futures that may unfold from the UK's exit from the EU.


This is a study about participation of mental health service users in the clinical practice decisions of mental health student nurses undertaking their nurse training. The research was undertaken with students, recruited from a higher education institution, in collaboration with mental health service users, recruited from mental health service user organisations, and was conducted over a period of eighteen months. Mental health service users have long been calling for greater involvement in the clinical decisions which affect their lives. Involvement in this context means decisions made collaboratively with service users where there is determined effort, on the part of the nurse, to share decisional power. Concern has also been expressed that current theory used to inform practice is derived predominantly from professional academics rather then those who use services. In order to address these issues, a co-operative inquiry design was adopted which engaged all participants as co-researchers, as well as co-subjects, and involved repeated cycles of action and reflection, using recorded group meetings as the means to collect the data. The aims of the study were to identify strategies for increasing user participation in decisions, to develop a model of good practice and to explore the value of co-operative inquiry as a vehicle for bringing about increased participation. The outcomes of the inquiry have been to identify, from a service user perspective, professional values, behaviours and actions and cultural aspects within organisations which inhibit or enable the sharing of power and participation in decisions. In addition the inquiry has developed the 'time for change' model which it is proposed could be used to evaluate aspects of participation within the clinical practice and education environment. The inquiry concludes by demonstrating the potential benefits and challenges of conducting meaningful participatory research. It also reflects on the value of the co-operative inquiry process as a vehicle for developing the students' practice and moral development, which, it is argued, has wider utility in higher education and the practice learning environment. Finally the inquiry emphasises the need for an organisational culture in which the practice of participation can evolve and be nurtured, in order to overcome the systematic exclusion, or what has been termed 'institutional userism', which was a common experience for the inquiry participants.


BACKGROUND The benefits of physician-staffed emergency medical services (EMS) for trauma patients remain unclear because of the conflicting results on survival. Some studies suggested potential delays in definitive hemostasis due to prolonged prehospital stay when physicians are dispatched to the scene. We examined hypotensive trauma patients who were transported by ambulance, with the hypothesis that physician-staffed ambulances would be associated with increased in-hospital mortality, compared with EMS personnel-staffed ambulances. METHODS A retrospective cohort study that included hypotensive trauma patients (systolic blood pressure ≤ 90 mm Hg at the scene) transported by ambulance was conducted using the Japan Trauma Data Bank (2004–2019). Physician-staffed ambulances are capable of resuscitative procedures, such as thoracotomy and surgical airway management, while EMS personnel-staffed ambulances could only provide advanced life support. In-hospital mortality and prehospital time until the hospital arrival were compared between patients who were classified based on the type of ambulance. Inverse probability weighting was conducted to adjust baseline characteristics including age, sex, comorbidities, mechanism of injury, vital signs at the scene, injury severity, and ambulance dispatch time. RESULTS Among 14,652 patients eligible for the study, 738 were transported by a physician-staffed ambulance. In-hospital mortality was higher in the physician-staffed ambulance than in the EMS personnel-staffed ambulance (201/699 [28.8%] vs. 2287/13,090 [17.5%]; odds ratio, 1.90 [1.61–2.26]; adjusted odds ratio, 1.22 [1.14–1.30]; p < 0.01), and the physician-staffed ambulance showed longer prehospital time (50 [36–66] vs. 37 [29–48] min, difference = 12 [11–12] min, p < 0.01). Such potential harm of the physician-staffed ambulance was only observed among patients who arrived at the hospital with persistent hypotension (systolic blood pressure < 90 mm Hg on hospital arrival) in subgroup analyses. CONCLUSION Physician-staffed ambulances were associated with prolonged prehospital stay and increased in-hospital mortality among hypotensive trauma patients compared with EMS personnel-staffed ambulance. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Therapeutic, level IV.


This study investigated the degradation of metoprolol (MET), carbamazepine (CBZ), ciprofloxacin (CIP) and hydroxy-ibuprofen (OH-IBU) in aqueous solution by a ferrate(VI) material obtained by dry synthesis according to patent WO2008065279. Ferrate(VI) had the highest reactivity with CIP, with a second-order rate constant of 89 ± 2 M−1 s−1 at pH 10.3 ± 0.3. The rate constants of ferrate(VI) with MET and CBZ under the same conditions were 3.7 ± 0.3 M−1 s−1 and 13.1 ± 0.8 M−1 s−1, respectively, while no reaction took place with OH-IBU. We also evaluated the removal efficiencies of nine selected pharmaceuticals, including MET, CBZ, CIP and OH-IBU, detected in a real hospital wastewater (HWW) with concentrations ranging from 73 ± 4 ng L−1 to 159 ± 8 μg L−1 by applying Fe(VI) technology. The abatement of the targeted pharmaceuticals depends on their structures. Because Fe(VI) captures electrons during the oxidation process, we proposed to correlate the reactivity of Fe(VI) with the first ionization potential (IP) of the pharmaceuticals. The first IP values of MET, CBZ, CIP, OH-IBU and diclofenac (DFC) were determined by gas-phase UV photoelectron spectroscopy (UV-PES). The UV-PES data were also interpreted using density functional theory (DFT) calculations.


Studies have shown that nanometer Titanium dioxide is an excellent photocatalyst material, which owns environmental protection function of decomposing car exhaust, and it begins to be used in road works in recent years. In this paper, firstly a representative concentration ratio of each component in exhaust gas is reached according to statistical result from a large number of vehicle exhaust samples, and simulated gas used in laboratory test is prepared according to the ratio. Then substantial gas- decomposition tests are performed utilizing the self-designed sealed container and UV aging box. Applying ion chromatography to analyze the decomposition products, it is proved that nano-titanium dioxide can decompose NOx, HC, CO and other harmful gases into nitrate and carbonate. Subsequently, an excellent concrete protection materials- anticorrosive of silane solvent is selected as dispersion solvent, and a certain amount of titanium dioxide is dispersed evenly in the solvent to make the coating material with photocatalytic performance, the brushing method and decomposition effect of the coating material are discussed. In the end, a brushing method with better decomposition effect is applied on cement collision wall on middle ring in Pudong district, while nano-titanium is also contained in the surface layer of pavement; Field measurement results show that the decomposition of car exhaust effect is obvious.


Longitudinal studies investigating vitamin B12 and folate status of mothers and their offspring will provide a better understanding of intergenerational nutrition. During pregnancy and 2 years (2y) after delivery, we measured plasma vitamin B12 and folate concentrations in 118 women [aged (mean ± s.d.) 22.9 ± 3.9y] who attended a rural (n = 68) or an urban (n = 50) antenatal clinic in Pune, India. Cord blood vitamin B12 and folate were measured, and when the child was 2y total homocysteine (tHcy) was also measured. Demographic and diet measurements were recorded using standard methods. Pregnancy plasma vitamin B12 concentration at 34 weeks was low [median (25th, 75th), 115 (95, 147) pm]; 75% had low status (<150 pm). Plasma folate was high (mean ± s.d., 33 ± 21 nm); one had a folate concentration <7 pm. Cord plasma vitamin B12 and folate concentrations were higher than and positively associated with maternal concentrations. In stepwise regression, higher child vitamin B12 at 2y was predicted (total R 2 15.7%) by pregnancy vitamin B12 (std β 0.201, R 2 7.7%), current consumption of cow's milk (std β 0.194, R 2 3.3%) and whether breast feeding was stopped before 2y (std β −0.234 R 2 7.2%). Child's 2y tHcy concentration was high (11.4 ± 3.6 μm) and predicted by lower pregnancy vitamin B12 (std β −0.206, R 2 4.1%), lack of vitamin supplementation (std β −0.256, R 2 5.6%) in pregnancy and whether currently breastfed (std β 0.268, R 2 8.4%). Low maternal vitamin B12 status in pregnancy and prolonged breast-feeding results in disturbed one-carbon metabolism in offspring at 2y. Supplementation of women of child-bearing age, particularly during pregnancy and lactation, may improve the homocysteine status of these children.


It is often observed that companies position themselves based on their strength, or the advantages they posses comparing to their competitors. Therefore, sustainable competitive advantage is playing a major role in company's strategic positioning against its competitors. Nowadays, positioning has become a popular word among marketing practitioners and theorists. This study sought to determine the role of strategic positioning in achieving sustainable competitive advantage at Safaricom Kenya Limited. The study also sought to answer the following questions; what is the role of cutting edge technology in achieving a sustainable competitive advantage in Safaricom Limited? What is the role of Resource-Based-View in achieving a sustainable competitive advantage in Safaricom Limited? What is the role of generic strategies in achieving a sustainable competitive advantage in Safaricom Limited? This was a case study research. Primary data was used in this study. Primary data refers to what is collected directly by the researcher for the purpose of the study. An interview guide was used to collect the primary data. The collected data was organized, categorised on its themes and relationships between the categories established for easy and accurate analysis. The data was then evaluated and analyzed to determine the adequacy, the accuracy, the credibility and the usefulness of information in answering research questions in order to achieve the objectives of the study. Content analysis was employed to process data collected. This study found that cutting edge technology was helping Safaricom limited in achieving a sustainable competitive advantage. Safaricom limited was the first telecommunication service provider to adopt a 3G+ technology and money transfer services by use of mobile phones (M-PESA). The study also found that resource based view in Safaricom limited was highly influencing the achievement of a sustainable competitive advantage. The major resources in Safaricom limited include technological resources, human resources, knowledge resources, financial resources and assets.


This paper deals with the distributed Controller Area Network (CAN) based control system design for experimental Autonomous Locomotion Robot (ALR) VUTBOT-2. It also features a System of Aviation Modules (SAM) description for airborne applications. Distributed control system of the ALR is generated by microprocessor units, which are linked by the CAN. As a Higher Layer Protocol (HLP) the CANAerospace protocol was chosen. CANAerospace is an extremely lightweight protocol/data format definition, which was designed for highly reliable communication with microprocessor-based systems in airborne applications via CAN. It is successfully implemented with the SAM.


The Internet has provided a new context for the exploration of the concept of identity. This study used innovative perspectives in studying the online identities of a group of college students in China. (1) The study explored the individual 'you' rather than a collective identity. (2) The study linked all meaningful online settings which are suggested by the participants in discussions of the concept of online identity. (3) The study adopted the dialogical conception of identities of DST (Dialogical Self Theory) that gave each 'I-position' an opportunity to express its own story from its own perspective. Thus, the present study explored all the 'I-online-positions' and 'dialogical relationships' among them. (4) Comparing the relationships between the online and offline identities aimed to locate the concept of online identity and a comprehensive understanding of the whole concept of identity. Furthermore, it explored not only the relationship between the whole concept of online and offline identity, but also the relationship between each online sub-identity and the offline identity, with the aim to locate a more precise position for the online identity.
Methodologically, the study settled in the transition zone between interpretivism and pragmatism, valuing philosophical stances from both of them. It also adopted a situationalist position by valuing the complementarity of quantitative and qualitative approaches. Data collection involved two stages: a questionnaire followed by in-depth interviews. These process were conducted under the concept of a 'participatory sense-making' relationship between the researcher and the researched.
The study arrived at the following conclusions: (1) 'Situational self': there are different online identites in different online environments, each satisfying different needs of the individual and influenced by personal and cultural values, the specific environment and personal imagination. (2) 'What is lacking tends to appear online': each participant wants to achieve his/her own 'circle' of his/her offline identity online. (3) 'Changeability' of online identity: contrary to the relative stability of offline identity, a 'changeability' of online identity satisfies online users' needs. Online identities are dropped or tend to converge with offline identities if certain needs are met. (4) 'Beneficial to the college students': most participants claim the transitions between various identities quite smooth and the experiences with online identities are quite beneficial to most. The exception to this is a case of addiction. (5) The personal 'circle of imagination' is the starting point of an individual's engagement with identity choices, in the interaction between personal and cultural values. (6) 'Rational man': the participants reveal themselves as 'rational' in choosing the most advantageous online identities to meet their own needs, based on their personal values, cultural values, specific environments and personal imagination.


Objective: To determine whether there is a greater prevalence of asymptomatic first-degree relatives (FDR) of patients with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) performing abnormally on the PD test battery (PD Battery) compared to sex- and age-matched normal control (NC) individuals. The PD Battery incorporates tests of motor function, olfaction, and mood. It has high specificity and sensitivity in distinguishing mildly affected PD patients from NC individuals in previous studies. Methods: This test battery and regression analysis–derived scoring equations were applied to asymptomatic FDR. Results: Twenty-three FDR and 23 NC individuals were tested. Of the FDR, 39% scored in the abnormal range, whereas none of the NC individuals achieved abnormal scores. This difference was significant. Further analysis demonstrated that the two groups differed significantly on a measure of simple reaction time. Conclusions: The proportion of FDR who demonstrated abnormal performance on the PD Battery was greater than NC individuals. Thus, the PD Battery may detect the asymptomatic carrier state or risk for PSP or a subclinical effect of a shared environmental exposure.


Alonso M. & Garcia-de-Lomas J. 2009. — Systematics and ecology of Linderiella baetica n. sp. (Crustacea, Branchiopoda, Anostraca, Chirocephalidae), a new species from southern Spain. Zoosystema 31 (4): 807-827. ABSTRACT Linderiella baetica n. sp. (Anostraca, Chirocephalidae), is described from a temperate Mediterranean climate, episodic temporary fresh water body in Puerto Real (Cádiz, South Spain). Linderiella baetica n. sp. is characterized by the display of the shape of the basomedial outgrowth on the male second antenna, margin structure of praepipods, structure of medial margin of endopod, penis basal projections, horn-like process on the inner side of the female antenna, female genital somites and of a combination of morphological features involving egg morphology. The study includes a morphological analysis using optical and scanning electron microscopes. Based on the differential diagnosis, a dichotomous key for males, females and resting eggs to Linderiella species is proposed. The diagnosis is complemented with phenology of the species and accompanying fauna and aquatic vegetation, and physico-chemical evolution of water along monitoring.


In the late 2000s, corn prices rose rapidly and were closely followed by prices of other major agricultural commodities. A widespread explanation for these market changes is an increased demand for corn in the production of ethanol, prompted by the introduction of programs intended to encourage biofuels production in the United States. In response to political pressures, the U.S. Congress considered amending three ethanol policies. It is likely that the interaction among the three policies can exacerbate these distortions. This study seeks to model the effects of simultaneous policy changes on multiple sectors of the blended gasoline marketing channel.


Exploration under sparse reward is a long-standing challenge of model-free reinforcement learning. The state-of-the-art methods address this challenge by introducing intrinsic rewards to encourage exploration in novel states or uncertain environment dynamics. Unfortunately, methods based on intrinsic rewards often fall short in procedurally-generated environments, where a different environment is generated in each episode so that the agent is not likely to visit the same state more than once. Motivated by how humans distinguish good exploration behaviors by looking into the entire episode, we introduce RAPID, a simple yet effective episode-level exploration method for procedurally-generated environments. RAPID regards each episode as a whole and gives an episodic exploration score from both per-episode and long-term views. Those highly scored episodes are treated as good exploration behaviors and are stored in a small ranking buffer. The agent then imitates the episodes in the buffer to reproduce the past good exploration behaviors. We demonstrate our method on several procedurally-generated MiniGrid environments, a first-person-view 3D Maze navigation task from MiniWorld, and several sparse MuJoCo tasks. The results show that RAPID significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art intrinsic reward strategies in terms of sample efficiency and final performance. The code is available at https://github.com/daochenzha/rapid


This book presents a contemporary broad assessment of the main dilemmas of regional development and regional policy in Central and Eastern Europe considering the influence of internal and external pressures on the regionalization process in this area.


Most collision detection methods developed so far are based on geometrical object-space interference tests. While this remains the basic mode of investigation for geometric algorithms, the requirements for interactive rates and complex geometry predominate in commercial applications. In this article, we propose a new mode of collision detection based on an image-space approach. This approach breaks the object-space collision detection bottleneck by distributing the computational load onto the hardware graphics pipeline. The image-space approach, in conjunction with efficient bounding-box strategies in the object-space, has the potential to handle complex object interactions at interactive rates.


: Twenty-five years experience of diagnosis and results of treatment of 143 childs aged from 10 days to 15 years with sizable mediastinal formations was summarized. Benign tumor was revealed in 50 (34.96%) childs, malignant one--in 93 (65.04%). Groups of most important symptoms were suggested: generally somatic, compressive, neurological. Principal method of diagnosis of mediastinal tumor in children--the survey roentgenography of thoracic organs in two projection. Immediate and late follow-up results of operative intervention were estimated, diagnostic mistakes were analyzed.


ing and Indexing The journal is listed in the major relevant abstracting and indexing services worldwide, including: Analytical Abstracts, Biological Abstracts, Biotechnological Research Abstracts, Chemical Abstracts, Current Awareness in Biological Sciences, Current


In this study, we monitored temporal and spatial variability in summer cold water events in the East Sea of Korea. We defined cold water as seawater that is ≥ 5°C colder than the surrounding area. When cold water expands or changes in propagation direction, the National Institute of Fisheries Science (NIFS) of Korea issues a cold water upwelling warning to prevent aquafarm damage. To understand cold water effects, we analyzed the causes of continuous and strong cold water events, and propagation thereof, using satellite and in situ data for summer to autumn in the period 2011–2019. To investigate the cold water life cycle, we used satellite-derived sea surface temperature (SST) data collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites Aqua and Terra, as well as in situ ocean surface current and wind data. Our results showed that cold water zones tend to expand in early summer and contract in late summer. The cycle of cold water expansion and contraction was repeated several times due to cold water events.


Arthur Miller clearly enjoys militantly civil conversation. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Miller in interview is his willingness to answer question after question with grace and substance, with a sense of social commitment and metaphysical curiosity. These interviews complement the plays and his more formal and well-known theater essays, revealing his dramatic and aesthetic theories, his concern with language and structure, his awareness of the inner reality of his characters and how these concerns broaden to highlight universal social and metaphysical issues. Miller in conversation provides a unique insight into both the dramatic works and the man behind those works. Through forty years of the best of Miller interviews, similar concerns surface, but with one crucial difference: the actor/audience barrier is minimized, and the listener is left with the delightful prospect of engaging Miller, not through Willy Loman or Kate Keller, or through critics "interpreting" the play


A 1.5V, 512 Mbit GDDR4 SDRAM using a 90-nm DRAM process has been developed. The data rate is 3.2 Gbps/pin, which corresponds to 12.8 GBps in x32 GDDR4 based I/O. A multi-divided architecture consisting of 4 independent 128 Mb core arrays is designed to reduce power and output noise. Also, a dual-clock system, 4 phase data input strobe scheme and 4 phase fully analog DLL are used to increase internal timing margins.


Dry sand turns into a stiff and moldable material as soon as it is mixed with some liquid. This is a direct consequence of the internal liquid–air interfaces spanning between the grains which causes capillary cohesion by virtue of the surface tension of the liquid. As a model for wet granulates we investigated random packings of submillimeter spherical beads mixed with water. Measurements of the tensile strength and the fluidization threshold demonstrate that the mechanical stiffness is rather insensitive to the liquid content over a wide range. Only for a high liquid content, when more than half of the available pore space is filled with liquid, does the capillary cohesion weaken. In order to understand the interplay between the mechanical properties and the liquid content, we investigated the liquid distribution in random packings of glass spheres by means of x-ray microtomography. The three-dimensional images reveal that the liquid forms a network of capillary bridges fused at local triangular bead configurations. The spontaneous organization of the liquid into these ramified structures, which exhibit a large liquid–air interface, is responsible for the constancy of the cohesive forces in a wide range of liquid contents beyond the onset of capillary bridge coalescence.


In the UK, in January 2006, the total area of organic and in-conversion land was 619,852 ha. This represents a decrease of 8% compared to January 2005.
In Wales, in January 2006, the area of fully organic land increased to 5% of the total area of agricultural land. The number of organic producers and growers, including those in-conversion, increased from 618 in 2003 to 688 in 2006.
Organic producers represent approximately 4% of all farmers in Wales.
Welsh organic producers represent 16.6% of the UK total number of organic producers and growers.
UK organic milk production increased from 17 million litres in 1997/8 to over 300 million litres in 2005/6.
In Wales, in 2005, dairy and milk products represented 26% of the total gross product of Welsh Agriculture.
In March 2007, according to data supplied to ADAS by certification bodies, there were 86 fully-organic dairy producers in Wales and 12 in conversion. This represents 4% of the total number of dairy producers in Wales.
In 2005, an estimated 50 million litres of milk were produced on 108 organic farms with ca. 9,500 dairy cattle – the number of holdings is higher than the ADAS 2007 figure, but some may have been in suspended conversion due to the lack of a market, or have subsequently withdrawn from milk production.
The 12 producers who started conversion in 2006 will supply an estimated additional 12 million litres/pa of organic milk when converted.
There has been a marked increase in requests for OCIS advice from dairy farmers. These increased from 4 in 2004 to 71 in 2006.
Key challenges facing organic dairy farmers in Wales include milk price, forage production and optimising milk from forage.
The UK dairy sector holds the second-largest share of the organic market with an estimated £294m sales at retail level in 2005 and 22% of the overall organic market. The majority of organic milk enters the liquid market.
Organic dairy consumers are primarily ABC1. They have diverse shopping habits, use a variety of retail outlets and want information to assist in purchasing decisions and to justify price premiums.
There appears to be a positive correlation between increases in sales of organic milk and dairy products and the publicity given to research findings about the health benefits of organic milk.
Sales of organic liquid milk in the UK grew from 73.8 million litres in 2004 to 158 million in 2006. Because of increased demand, the UK market moved from oversupply to seasonal undersupply. Projected growth in demand, if fulfilled, will create new opportunities for producers willing to convert.
Key market drivers identified by stakeholders were publicity on the health benefits of organic milk, animal welfare concerns and increased interest from major retailers. Main constraints on the development of the organic dairy market were under-supply, lack of promotion, distribution issues, seasonality of production, increased feed costs and lack of processing facilities.
The main strategies needed to develop the organic dairy market identified by stakeholders were co-operation, increased conversions, consumer education, a higher profile for organic food and long term supply chain agreements.
The Welsh Organic Dairy sector has seen considerable product innovation since 2003.

Recommendations
1. A joint effort by the whole organic dairy industry is required to plan ahead to ensure that the number of dairy farm conversions will not lead to a repetition of the oversupply problem experienced in the past.
2. Consideration should be given to setting up an Organic Dairy Sub-Group in Wales.
3. The numbers of farms converted and in-conversion needs to be accurately monitored.
4. Advice and technical knowledge on organic dairy farming needs to be made available through Organic Centre Wales.
5. The industry needs to look into ways of encouraging more organic cereal and alternative protein crops to be grown in order to prevent the shortage of organic feed.
6. Continued research is needed to address the issues identified in this report.
7. It is important that organic dairy farming research should be continued at Ty Gwyn, Trawscoed.
8. There is a need to continue to increase the public awareness of organic farming and agriculture as a whole.
9. Welsh branding of organic products should be developed.
10. The Welsh organic dairy industry should examine ways of increasing sales particularly through outlets other than the multiple retailers.


Ledipasvir sold below the brand Harvoni among others, may be a medication accustomed treat viral hepatitis. It's a fixeddose combination of ledipasvir and sofosbuvir. Cure rates are ninety four to ninety nine in individuals infected with viral hepatitis virus (HCV) genotype one. Some proof additionally supports use in HCV genotype three and four. It's taken daily orally for 8–24 weeks. It is usually well tolerated. Common aspect effects embrace muscle pains, headache, nausea, rash, and cough. It is unclear if use in physiological state is safe for the baby. Ledipasvir works by decreasing the activity of NS5A and sofosbuvir works by decreasing the activity of NS5B enzyme.


Laboratory courses represent an incompletely tapped opportunity to teach sustainability concepts. This work introduces and evaluates a simple strategy used to teach sustainability concepts in electrical engineering laboratory courses. The technique would readily adapt to other disciplines. The paper presents assessment data and a wiki containing student sustainability analyses.


Marinas are the most important nautical tourism entities, whose competitiveness, business excellence and long-term prospects are not the only features upon which their business operations are based. In the modern business world, the significance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is increasing. All marina businesses should, therefore, be measured based on their contribution to the economic progress, ecological quality and social capital. The goal of this paper is to provide a theoretical and practical contribution to the understanding of CSR in marinas, while its purpose is to determine the role of CSR in achieving the competitiveness of marinas in the nautical tourism market. The research has shown, considering the relatively low percentage of marinas that responded to the survey questionnaires, insufficient integration of the CSR in the Croatian marina business, as well as their poor interest in the CSR evaluation. Additionally, the implementation of such a practice in the observed marinas is also very recent, leaving considerable room for improvement and progress, which will be manageable only in cooperation with a stimulating environment. The implementation of CSR in the marina business is a great challenge, but it can result in various benefits for their competitiveness, image and communication and collaboration with various stakeholders.


Load sharing algorithms can use sender-initiated, receiver-initiated, or symmetrically-initiated schemes to improve performance in distributed systems. The relative performance of these schemes has been shown to depend on the system load. The author proposes an adaptive symmetrically-initiated scheme where all nodes alternate between a sender-initiated and a receiver-initiated algorithm depending on the current system load. Simulations show that the mean job response times for the proposed scheme are superior to the best attained by its two algorithms used separately and simultaneously. The alternating scheme performs best at intermediate and high loads, when the job arrival process is bursty, and when it is costly to find complementary nodes.<<ETX>>


Abstract
Background: In Ethiopia Stunting, underweight and wasting in school children are very common. The aim of this research was to evaluate the impact of intestinal helminthes and schistosomiasis on malnutrition, anaemia and haematological indices in the school age children of Azezo Elementary School in Gondar town.
Methods: Kato Katz technique was performed to determine infection and intensity of intestinal helminth infections. AnthroPlus software version 1.04 was used to get malnutrition indices while fully-automated haematological analyzers were used to determine haematological and biochemical parametrs.
Results: Atotal of 384 school children were recruited in this study. The overall prevalence of helminth infections was 45.8% (178/384) with the leading Ascaris lumbericoides infection (20.6%) compared to the second leading Schistosoma mansoni (17.4%) and third leading hook worm infections (13.3%). The prevalences of body mass indexes for age Z-scores (BAZ) indices were 9.6% (37) very sever thinnes, 17.2% (66) sever thinness, 38.3% (147) thinness, 34.4% (132) normal and 0.5% (2) overweight. On the other hand, the prevalences of height for age Z-scores (HAZ) indices were 12.2% (47) stunt, 87% (334) normal and 0.8% (3) over height. Of the total 384 school age children, 335 (87.2%) had normal blood glucose level (70 – 110 mg/dL) while the remaining 49 (12.8%) school age children were hypoglycemic. The number of the school children with normal total protein level (6.6 – 8 g/dL) was 259 (67.4%) while the remaining 125 (32.6%) school children were hypo-proteinaemic. The prevalence of anemia in the school age children was 33.1% (127). Intestinal helminth infections were statistically significantly associated (p = 0.000) with hypo-glycemia, hypo-proteinaemia and anemia compared with non-infected school children. The likelihood of anemia in intestinal helminth infected school children, when it was compared with uninfected was 148 times higher for both Ascaris lumbericoides-Schistosoma mansoni co-infection, 38 times for Hookworm, 20 times for Schistosoma mansoni and 3 times for Ascaris lumbericoides mono-infection.
Conclusion: Intestinal helminth infections in school age children aggravate malnutrition. Prolonged malnutrition and intestinal helminth infections could result in stunting in school-age children.
Key Words: school children; malnutrition; intestinal helminth infections; nutritional indices; Gondar town.


Two grounded voltage controlled resistors operating in saturation region are proposed. The first proposed grounded voltage controlled resistor employs 8 metal-oxide semiconductor (MOS) transistors and the second one uses 10 MOS transistors. The proposed GVCRs having only one control voltage do not need any bias currents and voltages constructed with extra elements. One of the main properties of the proposed tunable resistors is to operate at higher frequencies. The first proposed tunable resistor needs a matching condition between power supply voltages while the second does not require such a matching constraint. A video filter example for the proposed tunable resistors is also given. A number of simulations with SPICE simulation program are included in order to exhibit effectiveness, performance and workability of the proposed tunable resistors.


Turfgrass managers in the transition zone are interested in converting swards of cool-season grasses to cold-hardy seeded bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon) in an effort to reduce water and fungicide inputs. The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential for establishing 'Riviera' bermudagrass in a perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) sward by using a strip-seeding technique, and then to build a machine that would facilitate the process. Four, 2-inch-wide tilled rows, 1 inch deep and 15 inches apart, were created in 6 · 6-ft plots and seeded by hand with 'Riviera' bermudagrass at 104 lb/acre pure live seed in July 2002. In one set of strip-seeded plots, a 7-cm-wide overspray of glyphosate ( 0.5 inch on either side of the row) was applied over tilled rows after seeding to suppress perennial ryegrass further. Plots established by the strip-seeding technique exhibited 71% bermudagrass coverage after two growing seasons, and 87% coverage when rows received a glyphosate overspray. Broadcasting 'Riviera' seed into perennial ryegrass plots resulted in 60% bermudagrass coverage at the end of the second season of establishment. A strip seeder was constructed and used to seed 'Riviera' into existing perennial ryegrass turf in late July 2004 using the aforementioned row configurations and a glyphosate overspray. Coverage evaluated the following spring, before green-up, was 10.3% compared with 0% coverage where 'Riviera' was broadcast seeded. At the seeding rates evaluated, 79% less 'Riviera' bermudagrass seed was required when using the strip-seeding method, and golfers would consider the surface more amenable to play during the establishment period compared with broadcasting glyphosate and seed. A patent is pending on the strip-seeding equipment and establishment process.


This paper extends previous works related to the assessment of component degradation, through Markov multi-state physic models. The extension includes the evaluation of the effects of uncertain parameters in the model, and the definition of their importance with respect to their influence on the output of the model. Global Sensitivity Analysis (GSA) is selected as the technique because it enables us to 1) consider the simultaneous effects of parameters variations, and 2) to define importance indexes that allow a ranking of the components. GSA requires a large number of evaluations for specific points, identified by an appropriate design of experiment. To avoid the many costly evaluations, a meta-model is built based on polynomial chaos expansion (PCE). A PCE is a multi-dimensional polynomial approximation of the model with coefficients determined by evaluating the model in a reduced set of predetermined points. Importance index values are then derived directly from the PCE. Because, in the problem considered, the model provides the time-dependent behavior of the state probabilities, the importance indexes are also functions of time. An application is presented, related to the cracking process in an Alloy 82/182 dissimilar metal weld in the primary coolant system of a nuclear power plant.


The causes of progressive destructive pulmonary tuberculosis are analyzed in 22 adolescents. The main causes of progressive pulmonary tuberculosis is its late detection, the polyresistance of Mycobacteria tuberculosis, negative blood bacterial activity, the body's diminished responsiveness. Complex etiopathogenetic therapy resulted in positive changes in the specific process in over two thirds of patients.


We transform the 3D underwater sensor network (USN) localization problem into its 2D counterpart by employing sensor depth information and a simple projection technique. We first prove that a nondegenerative projection preserves network localizability. We then prove that given a network and a constant k, all of the geometric k-lateration localization methods are equivalent. Based on these results, we design a purely distributed bilateration localization scheme for 3D USNs termed as underwater sensor positioning (USP). Through extensive simulations, we show that USP has the following nice features: (1) improved localization capabilities over existing 3D methods, (2) low storage and computation requirements, (3) predictable and balanced communication overhead, and (4) robustness to errors from the underwater environment.


Blue color in sodic plagioclase is produced by electronic transitions of Pb in a manner similar to the mechanism causing color in amazonite (potassium feldspar colored bluegreen by Pb electronic transitions). The two blue feldspar varieties have the following characteristics in common: (l) elevated Pb concentrations (usually greater than 0.01 wt.o/o), (2) structurally incorporated H*, (3) similar response of the color to heating and irradiation, and (a) similar band shape, position, and polarization in the optical spectrum.


Marine clays are distinguished by high compressibility and low shear strength. It has been reported that lime stabilisation is very much potent, and can be used as an ideal ground improvement technique in the case of marine clays. Cochin marine clays are sometimes abundant in primary and secondary sources of sulphates of sodium, lithium, potassium and calcium. Different types of sulphates may have different impact on lime stabilised clays. Present study investigates the effect of different types of sulphates in lime treated marine clays. Marine clay samples were collected by auger boring and all the physical properties were determined. Sulphate content in clay was also found. Clay samples were treated with 6% of lime and 4% of sodium sulphate, lithium sulphate and potassium sulphate and were kept for various curing periods of zero days, 1 week, 1 month, 3 months and 6 months. Atterberg limits, free swell index, unconfined compressive strength and pH of all samples were determined. It was found that the plasticity and swelling characteristics of lime treated clay were influenced by the addition of sulphates. It was also found that all the three types of sulphates had detrimental effect on the gain in strength of lime stabilised soil. But the effect varies significantly with the type of sulphate present in the clay. This necessitates the importance of determination of the type sulphate present in the marine clay, before planning the soil stabilisation using lime.


Objective: Description of clinical, biochemical and haematological changes in Saanen goat kids post-exposure to a naturally occurring heat stroke. Material and methods: The experimental group consisted of goats of different age (1–4 months) and sex (8 males, 12 females) with an average weight of 7.2±3.1kg. Twenty clinically healthy, three to four months old, Saanen goat kids (sex-ratio 1:1) were used as a control. The average body weight in this group was 9.4±2.6kg. Case history, clinical signs, and results of haematology and blood biochemistry were documented in all goat kids. Results: Most common findings were hyperthermia, ataxia, muscle tremor and depression. Increased serum urea, creatinine, potassium and plasma lactate concentrations as well as an increase in aspartate aminotransferase and lactate dehydrogenase activity were observed in goats post-exposure to heat stroke when compared to the control group. Two goat kids died despite supportive treatment. Physical and biochemical blood parameters improved following treatment. Conclusion: This is the first study on heat stroke in Saanen goat kids. Heatstroke may be fatal in Saanen goat kids, despite appropriate treatment, and may lead to secondary complications. Plasma lactate concentration seems to be a reliable indicator for the prognosis of heat stroke in goat kids.


In this work we investigate properties of ultra-narrow photoluminescence lines originating from recombination of excitons trapped by short-range potential fluctuations, caused by alloy disorder in GaAs/GaNAs core/shell nanowires. From power-dependent photoluminescence measurements we show that the emission behavior is consistent with biexciton-exciton cascade recombination in quantum dots. We also show that the thermal activation energy from the related localized states is of the order of 9-30 meV, suggesting a rather shallow confinement potential.


Polyp tissue depth, skeletal extension rate, reproduction and density band formation were studied in 15 colonies of Montastraea annularis from October 1994 to September 1997 as part of a long-term field study. With the commencement of a bleaching event in September 1995, the effects of bleaching on these biological parameters were examined. Bleaching affected all the parameters investigated, but the speed of recovery of each parameter to pre-bleaching values differed. Tissue depth recovered the fastest, within 4 to 8 wk of regaining normal pigmentation. Once pigmentation and tissue depth had recovered, skeletal growth resumed at its pre-bleaching rate. Reproduction took the longest to recover and reproductive failure occurred in severely bleached colonies 1 yr after bleaching. Even after 2 yr, reproductive output remained reduced in previously bleached colonies when compared with previously unbleached ones, although all colonies had successfully completed gametogenesis and spawning. Among the reproductive parameters measured, gonad size recovered faster than the number of gonads per polyp (i.e. polyps produced a smaller number of full-sized gonads 2 yr after bleaching). In all colonies, bleached and unbleached, the 1995 annual high-density (HD) band, which formed at the time of the bleaching event, appeared more prominent and in some cases wider than the HD bands for the years that preceded and succeeded bleaching. Bleaching reduced skeletal extension rate, and the HD band that formed at the time of the bleaching event was most pronounced in colonies in which skeletal extension rate was reduced for the longest period of time (i.e. severely bleached colonies). In 1996, the year following the bleaching event, colonies that did not complete gametogenesis (i.e. severely bleached colonies) produced no distinct HD band, while those that completed gametogenesis (i.e. mildly bleached colonies) produced a distinct HD band. These findings suggest that an inverse relationship between skeletal extension rate and HD band prominence may occur in Montastraea annularis, and that the failure of severely bleached colonies to produce a HD band in 1996 might be related, not to bleaching, but rather to the lack of gonad development and spawning in these colonies.


Chapter 2: Persons with somatic symptom disorder can have disturbed body awareness. Bodyoriented interventions such as psychomotor therapy can treat body awareness problems on the level of basic body signals, giving meaning in the here and now, or in the context of personal history. Such experience-based interventions offer a variety of learning opportunities that focus on the body with symptoms and seem to add to verbal interventions. The scientific base for these interventions, however, is still poor. Chapter 3: According to clients with somatic symptom disorders and their therapists, bodyrelatedness includes awareness of the body and self by understanding, accepting and adjusting to bodily signals, by respecting and regulating the body, by trusting and esteeming oneself and by being autonomous. This definition and structure of body-relatedness may help professionals to improve interdisciplinary communication, assessment, and treatment, and it may help clients to better understand their symptoms and treatment. Chapter 4: The mostly large differences in self-reports of body image between clients with somatic symptom disorder and a comparison sample from the general population as well as differences between diagnostic subgroups underline the importance of body image in clients with somatic symptom disorder. The results indicate the usefulness of assessing body image and treating negative body image in clients with somatic symptom disorder. Chapter 5: Own body drawings were studied as a form of assessment for body experience and several objective ratings were indicated to be reliable. Two internally consistent constructs, "details" and "basic elements", summarized these objective ratings. Correlation of objective ratings with ratings of the drawings by experts as well as sensitivity to change indicated potential clinical significance and the absence of correlation with a self-report measure suggested that analyses of body drawings yield information other than body-related questionnaires. These findings indicate that analyses of body drawings may be a promising assessment tool in somatic symptom disorder. Chapter 6: The study of body drawings in a matched general population sample indicated that clients with somatic symptom disorder and people from the general population picture a similar mean number of details in drawings of their own body. Analysis in the general population sample tentatively suggested that the perspective of the drawer potentially influenced observation scores. Because both the factor structure and the association with self-report measures differed between the groups, scorings of body drawings appear to reflect a different meaning for the two groups. Assessments using the scoring template that was found in chapter five may be more useful in the context of somatic symptoms than in the general population. Chapter 7: In the initial analysis of a structured physical therapeutic observation for people with somatic symptom disorder modestly sound psychometric quality of observations of execution of instructions, muscle tension and behavioral adaptation were found, however not of clients' ability to perceive the body adequately. This shows that these observations are feasible when restricted to observable behavior and it indicates the viability of further validation of the body-relatedness observation scale (BROS).


Pre-hospital Medical Services (EMS) in Iran, named "Emergency 115" was established by helping America to
reduce and prevent many deaths and long term disabilities. Transferring people from incident sites to the hospitals
is one duty of the emergency centers. The purpose of this paper is to describe current status of pre-hospital
emergency operation in missions of 115 Emergency bases in Rasht city, Iran, in order to compare with global
standards. This is a cross sectional descriptive-analytic study. Information of about 50% of Rasht city 115
emergency missions cases (5667 cases) in seven bases of them (include 6 urban bases and one road base) were
collected by 115 urgency missions forms in a year (from August 21th 2007 till August 21th 2008). Missions of odd
dates of every month in the study period were selected and the information was collected by a standard checklist of
Ministry of health of Iran. Data were entered in SPSS software ver. 16 and Chi Square and T tests were used to
define the meaningful differences (a = 0.05). 61.6% of contacts were male and mean age of them was 45.3 ± 21.9
years old. Among 5665 emergency missions, 5033 (92%) were interurban and type of missions were determined in
96.6% of them. Most places of missions were in residential environment (74.7%). Type of emergency cases was
determined in 47.1% of missions which the maximum was loss of consciousness (20.8%). Response time in our study
has been compared with standard time that it was significant relation between them (P value<0.001). In death
cases, 65.8% were men and the most of them were in age group 61-70 (20.7%). This study suggests that time
indexes of pre-hospital emergency in Rasht is lower than Tehran and Urmia and international standards. The short
response time and transport time compared to other settings may indicate improvement in the pre-hospital services
in the study area. It is very important to pay attention and care in measuring these times exactly and correctly to
have a good surveillance system at the EMS


Although perennially ice‐covered Antarctic lakes have experienced variable ice thicknesses over the past several decades, future ice thickness trends and associated aquatic biological responses under projected global warming remain unknown. Heat stored in the water column in chemically stratified Antarctic lakes that have middepth temperature maxima can significantly influence the ice thickness trends via upward heat flux to the ice/water interface. We modeled the ice thickness of the west lobe of Lake Bonney, Antarctica, based on possible future climate scenarios utilizing a 1D thermodynamic model that accounts for surface radiative fluxes as well as the heat flux associated with the temperature evolution of the water column. Model results predict that the ice cover of Lake Bonney will shift from perennial to seasonal within one to four decades, a change that will drastically influence ecosystem processes within the lake.


Modern sequence to sequence neural TTS systems provide close to natural speech quality. Such systems usually comprise a network converting linguistic/phonetic features sequence to an acoustic features sequence, cascaded with a neural vocoder. The generated speech prosody (i.e. phoneme durations, pitch and loudness) is implicitly present in the acoustic features, being mixed with spectral information. Although the speech sounds natural, its prosody realization is randomly chosen and cannot be easily altered. The prosody control becomes an even more difficult task if no prosodic labeling is present in the training data. Recently, much progress has been achieved in unsupervised speaking style learning and generation, however human inspection is still required after the training for discovery and interpretation of the speaking styles learned by the system. In this work we introduce a fully automatic method that makes the system aware of the prosody and enables sentence-wise speaking pace and expressiveness control on a continuous scale. While being useful by itself in many applications, the proposed prosody control can also improve the overall quality and expressiveness of the synthesized speech, as demonstrated by subjective listening evaluations. We also propose a novel augmented attention mechanism, that facilitates better pace control sensitivity and faster attention convergence.


UNLABELLED
Gaucher disease is a progressive lysosomal storage disorder caused by the deficiency of glucocerebrosidase leading to the dysfunction in multiple organ systems. Intravenous enzyme replacement is the accepted standard of treatment. In the current report, we evaluate the safety and pharmacokinetics of a novel human recombinant glucocerebrosidase enzyme expressed in transformed plant cells (prGCD), administered to primates and human subjects. Short term (28 days) and long term (9 months) repeated injections with a standard dose of 60 Units/kg and a high dose of 300 Units/kg were administered to monkeys (n = 4/sex/dose). Neither clinical drug-related adverse effects nor neutralizing antibodies were detected in the animals. In a phase I clinical trial, six healthy volunteers were treated by intravenous infusions with escalating single doses of prGCD. Doses of up to 60 Units/kg were administered at weekly intervals. prGCD infusions were very well tolerated. Anti-prGCD antibodies were not detected. The pharmacokinetic profile of the prGCD revealed a prolonged half-life compared to imiglucerase, the commercial enzyme that is manufactured in a costly mammalian cell system. These studies demonstrate the safety and lack of immunogenicity of prGCD. Following these encouraging results, a pivotal phase III clinical trial for prGCD was FDA approved and is currently ongoing.

TRIAL REGISTRATION
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00258778.


In this paper we describe a high performance environment, like cluster computers, with high accuracy obtained by use of C-XSC library. The C-XSC library is a (free) C++ class library for scientific computing for the development of numerical algorithms delivering highly accurate and automatically verified results by use of the interval arithmetic. These calculus in high accuracy must be available for some basic arithmetic operations, mainly the operations that accomplish the summation and dot product. Because of these aspects, we wish to use the high performance through a cluster environment where we have several nodes executing tasks or calculus. The communication will be done by message passing using the MPI communication library. To obtain the high accuracy in this environment extensions or changes in the parallel programs had done to guarantee that the quality of final result done on cluster, where several nodes collaborate for the final result of the calculus, maintain the same result quality obtained in one sequential high accuracy environment. To validate the environment developed in this work we done basic tests about the dot product, the matrix multiplications, the implementation of interval solvers for banded and dense matrices and the implementation of some numeric methods to solve linear systems with the high accuracy characteristic (some of the methods implemented are used in real life applications like hydrodynamic, agriculture and power electric systems). With these tests we done analysis and comparisons about the performance and accuracy obtained with and without the use of C-XSC library in sequential and parallel programs. With the implementation of these routines and methods will be open a large research field about the study of real life applications that need during their resolution (or in part of their resolution) to calculate arithmetic operations with more accuracy than the accuracy obtained by the traditional computational tools. Our software run on labtec (UFRGS) and Colorado (UPF) clusters. Nowadays we are working in the implementation of parallel versions of programs to solve linear systems (without and with high accuracy) and the optimization of C-XSC library on cluster computers.


A new isocratic reversed-phase HPLC method with diode-array UV detection was developed and validated for the determination of methamphetamine and propranolol in tablet dosage forms. Chromatography was carried out on an XTerra RP18 (150×4.6 mm, 5 μm) column using 50 mM pyrrolidine (pH 11.5) – acetonitrile (50:50, v/v) as mobile phase at a flow rate of 1 ml/min. Spectrophotometric detection was performed at a wavelength of 214 nm. The linearity was established over the concentration range of 0.075-0.60 mg/ml for both drugs. The correlation coefficients (r2) were ≥0.9998 in each case. The relative standard deviation values for intermediate precision studies were <1%. Statistical analysis of the data showed that the method was precise, accurate, reproducible and selective for the analysis of methamphetamine and propranolol drugs. The method was successfully employed for the determination of propranolol and methamphetamine in commercially available tablet dosage form.


I. INTRODUCTION Over the last twenty-five years, the electric power industry has been transformed from one that favored vertically-integrated monopolies to one that now generally endorses competitive generation supply. The evolution of the industry has created new suppliers of power and new forms of grid ownership and governance. One of the issues generators have had to confront through this evolution is that of interconnecting a new plant to the grid. Without an interconnection, few generators would be able to serve load. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is currently considering the standardization of interconnection agreements and policies through a rulemaking proceeding.1 Among other things, the FERC recognizes that a generator's payment for a grid owner's interconnection facilities has federal income tax implications.2 The FERC's approach has been to allow parties to an interconnection agreement to include tax gross-ups or indemnity provisions.3 While the FERC's order in the Interconnection Rulemaking may provide clarity with regard to which party bears the risk and the economic burden of taxes associated with an interconnection, it will not address the taxation of an interconnection per se. Instead, taxpayers, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS or Service), and perhaps Congress must address the federal income tax consequences of an interconnection transaction. Taxes associated with interconnections will inherently affect the cost of power from, and the cost of entry for, competitive generators. Accordingly, utilities, generators, and consumers should each want the lowest possible tax burden. In addition, the tax liability is often significant and will affect the amount that needs to be recouped in either the generator's or the transmission owner's rates The parties to an interconnection agreement generally desire IMAGE FORMULA4 certainty as to the tax consequences for two reasons. First, if the tax liability falls on the utility and there is no gross-up or indemnity provision, the regulated utility would want to reflect this expense as soon as possible in its next-filed rate case. On the other hand, if the tax liability ultimately falls on the generator, the generator would want to know its full costs associated with constructing its plant (including taxes) before entering into long-term sales agreements for its output. To accommodate the need for certainty, the IRS has issued several IRS notices that provide details of safe harbor electric interconnection transactions that are not taxable, the most recent of which is IRS Notice 2001-82.5 A review of the historical regulatory and tax treatment of interconnection facilities since the beginning of the twentieth century may help to frame the analysis of the appropriate tax treatment of interconnections for the modern electric industry. Although safe harbors provide certainty, the IRS has not issued guidance on all issues. Extending the safe harbors to all stand-alone generators, as the Service did in IRS Notice 2001-82, was a welcome and necessary step. But issues that continue to be unanswered by the safe harbors, such as the tax treatment of transmission credits to generators paying for system upgrades, the tax implications for transmission providers not treated as corporations for tax purposes, and the tax treatment of transactions falling outside the safe harbors, must be analyzed under general tax principles. II. OVERVIEW OF RATEMAKING TREATMENT OF INTERCONNECTION COSTS A. Interconnection Cost Recovery Prior to Competition The electric power industry in the United States can trace its roots to the late nineteenth century. From its inception until the 1920s, electric utility regulation existed only at state and local levels.6 For the most part, utilities were very limited geographically and did not have interstate operations. Given the intensive capital investment required, the general belief was that a "natural monopoly" approach to electric service was more efficient economically than a competitive approach. …


Dynamic changes in somatosensory cortical maps are known to occur in experimental animals subjected to peripheral nerve transection or amputation. To study the sensory effects of central nervous system adaptation to temporary or permanent loss of input from a part of the hand, multimodality quantitative sensory tests were carried out in 11 patients with complete traumatic division and repair of the median or ulnar nerves and in six patients who had undergone amputation of one or more digits. As expected, vibration, two point discrimination, and tactile thresholds were raised in the territory of the injured nerve in a graded fashion, sensitivity being poorest in the patients with the most recent injuries. Surprisingly, localisation was better in the tips than at the base of the hypoaesthetic fingers, suggesting a central attentional gradient. Stimulus-response curves conformed to a power function whose exponent was higher in denervated than in normal skin. Changes in psychophysical functions were also discernible in the intact hand. There was no hyperaesthesia in the territory of the nerve adjacent to the injured one or in the stump in the case of amputees. Central factors contribute to the sensory changes seen after nerve injury, but the functional effects of the cortical reorganisation that follows partial deafferentation are more subtle than a simple heightening of sensitivity in the surrounding skin.


The history of our speech therapy profession is remarkable for the pace of change. From our origins just over a century ago when the focus was predominantly on articulation of speech and voice production, we moved steadily into the realms of linguistics, psychology, education and medicine; rapidly establishing distinctive roles in specialist assessment and intervention with new patient populations and client groups. It is highly commendable that as a collective professional community we are noted for being so creative, flexible and swift to adopt innovative new ways of working that have the potential to benefit the individuals we work with. But it is not always easy to ascertain the optimal way forwards: Who are the role models? Where are the leading examples of good practice? And how confident can we be that these approaches are evidence-based and effective? This new book seeks to address these questions by mapping out the landscape of significant technological applications in healthcare and education that are beginning to be adopted and adapted across our speech therapy professional scope of practice. These chapters provide a comprehensive overview of a breadth of technology applications already in widespread use, as well as horizon-scanning for the likely next developments. The editors have shone a spotlight on the exciting potential that technology offers our profession for today and for tomorrow. But this enthusiasm is balanced with a healthy measure of pragmatism for the constraints and considerations relevant to real-world practice. The book opens with helpful definitions and advice to clarify terminology and orientate readers. The inclusion of commentary on specific technical requirements and resource implications is particularly valuable. There is a very practical "toolkit mentality": an appropriate reminder that technologies should not be expected to deliver foolproof solutions, but need to be used judiciously to complement our existing repertoire of case management approaches. We need an informed debate about how best to navigate the professional issues posed by using some of these technologies. And additionally there are serious considerations for our professional associations about how employing some of these technological advances may impact on future workforce planning. Quite naturally across our international professional community there is some evident polarity in terms of the relative stages of adoption of some of these new technologies. Recently published exploratory studies with speech therapists have noted reported resistance in some groups towards changing traditional service models to incorporate the use of technology. Understanding these barriers – real and perceived – is crucial. These issues will inevitably encompass organisational readiness for change, as well as the knowledge, skills and confidence of individual practitioners. The chapters of this book will certainly speak to readers across this full spectrum: passionate converts and cautious novices alike. Read on to find exciting illustrative examples of best practice and experiences of using technology; to understand better how technology can enhance service delivery; and for support in identifying common challenges, practical solutions and strategies. Most of all, let us commit to ensure that whatever new technologies we employ, we must always plan ahead to document a systematic evaluation of the impact of our new ways of working: this is evidence-based practice.


Significant changes and reforms have been initiated around the world and in a Malaysian context with the aim of enhancing corporate governance and transparency. The nature of these regulatory reforms clearly impacted on firm management's incentives to disclose information voluntarily. This study empirically examines the influence of corporate governance structure on voluntary disclosure practices of Malaysian listed firms from 1996 to 2001. This important timeframe encompasses the time period before the Asian Financial Crisis and the aftermath of regulatory reforms such as the revamped KLSE Listing Requirement released in 2001, widely recognized as a major milestone in Malaysian corporate governance reform through the enhanced corporate disclosure. Our findings show that the extent of voluntary communication is generally low, albeit showing an increase from 1996 to 2001. There is an increase in the number of corporate governance characteristics adopted by firms, suggesting firms exhibiting an improvement in the corporate governance structure. While corporate governance structure is not a significant explanatory variable in 1996, our results suggest that a firm's corporate governance structure has a significantly positive impact on voluntary disclosure in 2001. Large companies voluntarily disclose more information in both years. The implications are that a greater focus on corporate governance is resulting in an increase in transparency in the Malaysian setting. Corporate change is generating better corporate communication.


While conflicts and tensions between the public and the private sector exist, there are significant opportunities for project developers and policymakers to develop innovative ways of providing urban mass transit systems in mega-cities. Based on economic and financial benefits, urban mass transportation systems in mega-cities can be developed based on market-driven supply (MDS) principles, which match urban infrastructure development with the presence of a commercially mature market. Fundamentally different from the traditional approach to urban mass transit systems that are developed through supply-oriented options, this approach recognizes that the presence of an urban population is a major determinant in urban transportation planning. Based on the limited resources of the public sector in managing mega-cities, MDS is the appropriate methodology for fast-tracking the development of urban infrastructure, particularly of urban mass transit systems.


Mail surveys present opportunities for reaching out to specific populations in ways not achievable by Internet or telephone, but the logistics of mail surveys can be complex and unclear. This article details the post-design and pre-analysis phase of a mail survey, from printing through distribution, with particular emphasis on time requirements and cost. Preparing a mailing of 10,000 pieces manually required 240 labor hours, excluding background research, or about 1:25 per unit (pre-printed envelope with pre-printed postage, stuffed with pre-printed and hand-stamped inner envelope, booklet, and folded cover letter). Manual preparation resulted in savings translating to an estimated equivalent hourly wage of US $46, based on costs from a similar professionally-prepared mailing, or as high as $142 including the time and costs associated with project management and printing discounts.


The evolution of Shakespeare's comedy, in Larry Champion's view, is apparent in the expansion of his comic vision to include a complete reflection of human life while maintaining a comic detachment for the audience. Like the other popular dramatists of Elizabethan England, Shakespeare used the diverse comic motifs and devices which time and custom had proved effective. He went further, however, and created progressively deeper levels of characterization and plot interaction, thereby forming characters who were not merely devices subordinated to the needs of the plot.Shakespeare's development as a comic playwright, suggests Champion, was consistently in the direction of complexity or depth of characterization. His earliest works, like those of his contemporaries, are essentially situation comedies: the humor arises from action rather than character. There is no significant development of the main characters; instead, they are manipulated into situations which are humorous as a result, for example, of mistaken identity or slapstick confusion. The ensuing phase of Shakespeare's comedy sets forth plots in which the emphasis is on identity rather than physical action, a revelation of character which occurs in one of two forms: either a hypocrite is exposed for what he actually is or a character who has assumed an unnatural or abnormal pose is forced to realize and admit the ridiculousness of his position. In the final comedies involving sin and sacrificial forgiveness, however, character development is concerned with a transformation of values. Although each of the comedies is discussed, Champion concentrates on nine, dividing them according to the complexity of characterization. He pursues as well the playwright's efforts to achieve for the spectator the detached stance so vital to comedy. Shakespeare obtained this perspective, Champion observes, through experimentation with the use of material mirroring the main action mockery, parody, or caricature and through the use of a comic pointer who is himself involved in the action but is sufficiently independent of the other characters to provide the audience with an omniscient view."


A new algorithm for modular multiplication for public key cryptography is presented. The algorithm is optimised with respect to area and time by use of a combination of adders and fast lookup tables. This leads to a multiplication method that can significantly speed up exponentiation, because the values of the lookup table do not depend on the operands of the individual multiplication. The speedup is achieved by continuous modification of one operand.


Abstract The distribution of V in magmatic rocks is controlled primarily by spinel stability. Extensive previous experimental work at oxidized conditions on doped (V-rich) compositions has led to the recognition of the importance of temperature, oxygen fugacity, and spinel composition, but also left ambiguity with respect to the relative importance of these variables in controlling DVspinel/melt. One major uncertainty has been the valence of V in the spinel and glass. Spinel-melt pairs were equilibrated at low and variable oxygen fugacities, with a range of V and Ti contents. XANES spectra were measured on the spinel and glass products, and pre-edge peaks measured and calibrated against valence with the use of glass and oxide standards. The valence of V is always greater in the glass than in the spinels. In spinel, V is dominantly 3+ at oxygen fugacities near the FMQ (fayalite magnetite quartz) buffer, but we find evidence for mixed 3+, 4+, and 5+ at oxidized conditions (FMQ to air), and 2+ and 3+ at very reduced conditions [FMQ to IW-1 (1 log fO₂ unit below the iron wüstite buffer)]. Increased V contents in spinels are correlated with increased DVspinel-melt, at constant temperature and oxygen fugacity. However, increased Ti content causes only a slight decrease in DVspinel-melt and a shift to more reduced V (smaller pre-edge peak), which may be related to Fe-V exchange equilibria. Using the new partition coefficients, together with published results and valence information, expressions have been derived to predict DVspinel/melt for basaltic systems. Application of these expressions to natural suites illustrate their utility and also the great range of DVspinel/melt values relevant to natural systems. Calculation of V depletions in planetary mantles from basalt suites must take silicate, oxide, and metal fractionation into account, as is demonstrated using terrestrial, lunar, martian, and eucritic samples.


Gondolas are still potent Venetian icons. Nonetheless, now they face a profound identity crisis, as a consequence of market trends and the use of new materials and techniques which are radically changing the way they are built. From a wider perspective, the juxtaposition between the new 'gondola simulacrum' an empty symbol without any artisan quality and the traditional 'gondola valuable handicraft' reflects the clear dividing line between the city of Venice crossed every year by almost 30 million tourists and the living city animated by inhabitants and original activities. In this way the process of gondola's heritagisation (recent attempts to candidate it in the UNESCO List) becomes a lens to read the destiny of an entire city where resilient energies, not properly native but deeply rooted, look for forms of survival to mechanisms of mass tourism. Summary


Tunable plasmonic structure at the nanometer scale presents enormous opportunities for various photonic devices. In this work, we present a hybrid plasmonic thin film platform: i.e., a vertically aligned Au nanopillar array grown inside a TiN matrix with controllable Au pillar density. Compared to single phase plasmonic materials, the presented tunable hybrid nanostructures attain optical flexibility including gradual tuning and anisotropic behavior of the complex dielectric function, resonant peak shifting and change of surface plasmon resonances (SPRs) in the UV-visible range, all confirmed by numerical simulations. The tailorable hybrid platform also demonstrates enhanced surface plasmon Raman response for Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and photoluminescence (PL) measurements, and presents great potentials as designable hybrid platforms for tunable optical-based chemical sensing applications.


Domain adaptation aims to reduce the effort on collecting and annotating target data by leveraging knowledge from a different source domain. The domain adaptation problem will become extremely challenging when the feature spaces of the source and target domains are different, which is also known as the heterogeneous domain adaptation (HDA) problem. In this paper, we propose a novel HDA method to find the optimal discriminative correlation subspace for the source and target data. The discriminative correlation subspace is inherited from the canonical correlation subspace between the source and target data, and is further optimized to maximize the discriminative ability for the target domain classifier. We formulate a joint objective in order to simultaneously learn the discriminative correlation subspace and the target domain classifier. We then apply an alternating direction method of multiplier (ADMM) algorithm to address the resulting non-convex optimization problem. Comprehensive experiments on two realworld data sets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method compared to the state-of-the-art methods.


Elastin-like polypeptide (ELP) polymers are ideal for producing environmentally responsive micellar systems because they exhibit a transition from being water-soluble at low temperatures to phase-separated at high temperatures. For application development of drug delivery vehicles and biosensing nanoparticles, it is important to prepare spherical micelles of controlled diameter and shape. Since at a given salt concentration, the headgroup area for each foldon should be constant, the size of the micelles is expected to be proportional to the volume of the linear ELP available per foldon headgroup. Therefore, adding linear ELPs to a system of ELP-foldon should result in changes of the micelle volume. At higher salts the electrostatic repulsion between headgroups is shielded, reducing the effective size of foldon headgroups, increasing the packing factor of micelles which leads to formation of non-spherical micelles. The effects of addition of linear ELPs on size, shape, and molecular weight of micelles at different salt concentrations were studied by a combination of Depolarized Dynamic Light Scattering (DDLS) and Static Light Scattering (SLS) Spectroscopies. The initial results on 50 μM ELPfoldon samples (at 25 mM salt) show that the apparent hydrodynamic radius of mixed micelles increases more than 5-fold as the amount of linear ELP raised from 0 to 50 μM. The size increase is accompanied by significant increase in depolarized scattering indicating the growing geometrical anisotropy of the micelles with increase of added linear ELP. In addition, the increase of the amount of linear ELP in the mixed micelles significantly increased the relative molecular weight of the micelles.


Abstract The Parnaíba Basin, like other Brazilian Paleozoic intracratonic basins, contains intrusive igneous bodies in its sedimentary section in the form of dykes and, mainly, thick sills. The identification of the geometry and the emplacement mechanism are important for the determination of the traps controlling gas and/or oil accumulations. A variety of models available in the literature suggests a complex relationship between the magma and the host rock. Several factors, such as the density and pressure of the magma injection, steam generation, regional and local stress fields, and the rheology of the host rock, work together controlling emplacement, expansion and the final geometry of intrusions in the sedimentary column. Well logs show a conspicuous signature (e.g. gamma-ray curve with paunchy feature) for the igneous bodies (sills). Many sills occur parallel to the bedding, generally intruding thick sections of shales along the contact of the lithostratigraphic units of the Longá-Poti, Pimenteiras-Cabeças and Tianguá-Jaicós formations. Seismic sections reveal a variety of geometries, including layer parallel, saucer-shaped, planar transgressive and fault block. By far the most common sill geometry is the layer parallel, which is able to reach up to hundreds of kilometres in extent, and has minimal thickness ranging between 2 and 5 m, and with a maximum of around 250 m.


This paper argues that many pedagogical reform efforts falter because they fail to consider the cultural context of teacher and student behavior. Little guidance exists on how to adapt teaching practices to be compatible with culturally influenced behaviors and beliefs. We present evidence from three studies conducted as part of a large basic education program in Tanzania showing that some teaching activities are less effective or not well implemented because of culturally influenced behaviors in the classroom, namely children's lack of confidence to speak up in class; a commitment to togetherness, fairness, and cooperation; avoidance of embarrassment; and age-graded authority. We propose ways teaching activities can be adapted to take these behaviors into account while still adhering to fundamental principles of effective learning, including student participation in their own learning, teaching at the right level, and monitoring students as a basis for adjusting instruction. Such adaptations may be made most effective by engaging teachers in co-creation of teaching activities.


A deterministic, age-structured population model was developed to simulate potential management scenarios designed to increase growth of individuals (quantified by maximum length) in a hypothetical population of white perch, Morone americana (Gmelin). Four scenarios were developed that included non-selective mortality of adult white perch, increased mortality of age groups most influential on population growth, increased age-0 mortality and inhibiting recruitment after spawning. The greatest increase in maximum length occurred with nonselective adult mortality when population biomass was reduced by 97%; lesser increases in maximum length were achieved with the other management scenarios. Populations returned to their original state after control efforts ceased for each scenario.


Abstract This article highlights the current relevance of cultural diplomacy not as a panacea for the problems in India's relations with its South Asian neighbours but as a way of dealing with the dilemma it faces. Against the backdrop of India's position in South Asia and the importance of the region, the article makes an estimate of cultural diplomacy. Furthermore, it emphasises the need for redefining and reshaping India's cultural diplomacy not as a means of increasing its own influence but with a view to furthering the prospects of regional cooperation and thereby helping the process of peace-building in the region.


Objective
To assess the urinary fluoride excretion in preschool children after drinking fluoridated milk with 0.185 mg F and 0.375 mg F and to study the impact of use of fluoride toothpaste.

Basic research design
Double-blind cross-over study.

Participants
Nine healthy children, 2.5-4.5 years of age.

Intervention
In a randomized order, participants drank 1.5 dl milk once daily for 7 days with no fluoride added (control), 0.185 mg fluoride added and 0.375 mg fluoride added. The experiment was performed twice with (Part I) and without (Part II) parental tooth brushing with 1,000 ppm fluoride toothpaste. The fluoride content in the piped drinking water was 0.5 mg F/L.

Main outcome measure
Urinary fluoride excretion.

Results
The 24-hour urinary fl uoride excretion/kg body weight varied from 0.014 mg F for the placebo intervention and non-fluoride toothpaste to 0.027 mg F for the 0.375 mg intervention with use of 1,000 ppm fluoride toothpaste. The difference compared with the placebo intervention was not statistically significant for any of the interventions when fluoride toothpaste was used (p⟩0.05) while it was statistically significantly different when non-fluoride toothpaste was used (p⟨0.05).

Conclusions
All sources of fluoride must be considered when designing community programs. With 0.5 mg F/L in the drinking water and daily use of fluoride toothpaste, most children had a fluoride intake optimal for dental health. In this setting, additional intake of fluoride milk was within safe limits up to 0.185 mg/day while conclusions about the safety of 0.375 mg/day were uncertain.


Building high-performance virtual machines is a complex and expensive undertaking; many popular languages still have low-performance implementations. We present a new approach to virtual machine (VM) construction that amortizes much of the effort in initial construction by allowing new languages to be implemented with modest additional effort. The approach (named Truffle) relies on tree-rewriting abstract syntax tree (AST) interpretation, together with an optimizing compiler (named Graal) that exploits the structure of the interpreter. The compiler uses speculative assumptions and deoptimization in order to produce efficient machine code. We illustrate the concepts of Truffle by the means of our open-source implementation of Python (named ZipPy). To show that Truffle supports a variety of programming language paradigms, we also present prototype implementations of other languages.


Sensor based environmental monitoring is beginning to gain traction given the recent advancements in sensor development technology. Sensor platforms offer several advantages in comparison to the traditional monitoring approaches based on discrete sampling methods as they offer the capability of providing high resolution data. Access to high-frequency spatial and temporal information facilitates real-time event detection or then understanding the impact of pollution to the water quality in natural water resources. In this paper, we report a multi-sensor process that we developed for in-situ monitoring of water pollution in rivers/lakes in which we acquire real-time water quality data using (a) a multiparametric sensor probe for quantitative data, (b) a crowd sensor via a mobile app for qualitative data and integrate these data onto a cloud platform i.e Bluemix which enables interactive visualization of data as Heatmap combined with geographical mapping. This type of visualization technique not only facilitates effective handling of high-resolution data but also allows large-scale data–driven inspection to identify affected/polluted zones and detection of pollution violations, thereby making it an important tool for enabling decision-making. Data analysis based on clustering techniques is also presented. We compare our techniques to traditional data collection methods. Furthermore, to support our efforts in water quality monitoring, we have also developed several web-based applications that are aimed at incorporating sensing data as well as data from various other sources onto a common online platform. We demonstrate the capabilities of our tools through a case study done on Yamuna river in New Delhi where we monitor the river pollution in real-time.


This paper presents the construction of a convex piecewise affine control Lyapunov function for constrained linear discrete-time systems, affected by bounded additive disturbances. Exploiting the properties of this control Lyapunov function, the closed-loop dynamics are shown to converge to a given full-dimensional robust positively invariant set. Moreover, the proposed method leads to a simple robust control algorithm which only requires solving a linear programming problem at each sampling instant. Finally, the controller design is illustrated via a numerical example.


This study was about assessing customer satisfaction on electricity conventional
billing system in Tanzania the case of TANESCO Ilala region. The study used
questionnaire to gather data from 242 respondents whose responses were
descriptively analysed with the aid of SPSS. The study found that there were two
types of paying electricity bills. Further, the study found that TANESCO workers
were the ones who read electric meter. It was also found that in some cases electric
meters were not read accurately although most customers were satisfied with meter
reading results. Moreover, the study found that most customers were not lower users
of electricity. It was also learnt that the services offered by TANESCO were not
satisfactory to most customers despite the fact that they paid their bills accordingly.
Furthermore, it was found that long distance travel to electric pay stations customers
spending a lot of time in paying electric bills were the main challenges of
conventional billing system. The study recommends that TANESCO should
withdraw from using electricity conventional billing system so that to invest more on
prepaid system. In order to maintain accuracy of electric meter reading, both parts
TANESCO and customers have to be involved. Moreover, the price of electricity
should be reduced especially for domestic users in order to discourage them from
using other sources of electricity which are not only harmful to their health but also
to national economy.
Keywords: Customer satisfaction, Electricity, conventional billing system