Many scientists believe that the magnitude and frequency of extreme events is escalating and in so doing will increase the vulnerability of the built environment. This paper discusses the synergies between three ongoing research projects being conducted at Loughborough University, the University of Salford and the University of Reading. The "Big Ideas" project aims to identify and understand the challenges, issues, drivers and barriers for the UK construction sector over the next 10 to 20 years. This work is being complemented by Loughborough's "PRE-EMPT" project and research being undertaken on behalf of the RICS Presidential Commission for Major Disaster Management. Mutually, these three projects form a basis for a deeper understanding of the future of both construction and the environment in which we live and work. The synergies between these projects will ultimately provide trans-disciplinary suggestions for how the industry and society can better prepare itself for any unforeseen eventualities.


Broccoli sprouts were directly frozen at −20 °C (DF-20), −40 °C (DF-40) and −80 °C (DF-80) or stored at −20 °C (LN-20), −40 °C (LN-40) and −80 °C (LN-80) after being frozen in liquid nitrogen for 5 min or always frozen in liquid nitrogen (LN). The effect of these treatments on glucoraphanin and ascorbic acid content, myrosinase activity, sulforaphane and sulforaphane nitrile formation in broccoli sprouts was investigated. The results showed that glucoraphanin content was not significantly affected by freezing. Treatments of DF-20, DF-40, LN-20 and LN-40 for 24 and 48 h enhanced myrosinase activity and decreased the ascorbic acid content. The enhancement of myrosinase activity after freezing was in parallel with more sulforaphane and less sulforaphane nitrile formation. Besides, freezing at −20 °C was more favorable for sulforaphane formation than −40 °C. Directly freezing at −20 °C increased the sulforaphane yield by 1.54–2.11 fold in the broccoli sprouts of the three cultivars investigated in this study.


In the war-ravaged decade following 9/11, every aspect of Muslim women's lives has become a fulcrum of political contestation. From burka bans in Belgium to proposed Sharia bans in Oklahoma and Tennessee, saving Muslim women is advertised as a purported aim for broad and varied campaigns that in actuality have little to do with them. In private conversations and in public forums on these issues, the questions on many lips are inevitably "But doesn't Islam really oppress women?" or "Doesn't Sharia law treat women as second class citizens?" Because these observers see Islam, Sharia, and Muslim women undifferentiated monoliths, the answers to their questions consequently fit the binaries that produce them: good and bad, just and unjust, oppressive and liberating. The assumptions buried inside these perceptions rest on western law, in which gender equality is safe, while in Sharia law, its specter hung with images of hacked hands and stoned women, it is not. The consequence of looking through these prisms is that everyone, reader and writer, scholar and student, is required to pick at team and then sit as onlookers in a civilizational contest that had little room for nuance or dialogue. All writing about Islam and Muslim women must thus ascribe to this paradigm, either an unequivocal defense or a fervid denigration, a prioritization of being either Muslim or female, and always an "either/or" and never ever a uniting "and." The essay presented here is a small rebellion against precisely this arrangement, one that insists that we choose a side, and immediately agree or disagree, before we understand or empathize or make any attempt to feel how the world appears to others seated at different places in the arena or to those in the ring itself. Rather, liberation and justice are complicated issues that defy the construction of neat lines across cultures and contexts and individual lives.


Summary form only given. Many key tasks in computer network monitoring, such as load balancing and the detection of anomalies (e.g., DoS attacks, link failures, and routing loops), fundamentally require a whole-network perspective - that is, methods of 'spatial' traffic analysis. A key challenge to advances in this area is posed by the fact that the 'space' in question, deriving from a network, is not some Euclidean sub-space but rather a graph. We focus on the problem of developing analyses sensitive to 'spatial' scale and introduce a framework for graph-based wavelets. In conjunction, we also consider the important issue of characterizing the underlying 'spatial' auto-correlation structure.


Hefei Light Source (HLS) is being upgraded to HLS II. Its emittance will be much lower than before, therefore the Touschek scattering will increase significantly and become the dominant factor of beam loss. So it is necessary to build a new beam loss monitoring (BLM) system that, in contrast to the old one, is able to obtain the quantity and position information of lost electrons. This information is useful in the commissioning, troubleshooting, and beam lifetime studying for HLS II. This paper analyzes the distribution features of different kinds of lost electrons, introduces the operation parameters of the new machine and discusses how to choose proper monitoring positions. Based on these comprehensive analyses, a new BLM system for HLS II is proposed.


Huila is a Colombian state with a high production of Oreochromis fish, its contribution to national production is of 53%, that is distributed in 338 hectares of ponds on land and floating cages. The environmental and climatic characteristics of the region allow having dissolved oxygen production in the ponds between 4ppm and 12ppm during the day, but at night the situation is unfavorable, since the amount of dissolved oxygen can decrease up to 1ppm while carbon dioxide increases. Therefore, it is necessary to have adequate oxygenation equipment and systems to prevent delayed in fish growth and to decrease death rates. This article presents the design and implementation of an automatic dissolved oxygen control system by manipulation of a water recirculation flow that operates in parallel with an industrial oxygen generator. The implemented system tracks and records the temperature and oxygen variables present in the geomembrane tank to evaluate the process evolution for different periods of the fish development cycle. The data was acquired using an Atlas Scientific dissolved oxygen sensor kit and a DS18B20 temperature probe they send the data directly to a Raspberry Pi that transmits by wireless the information collected from the process to the SICEFA web server and a mobile application through which users can observe the data traceability. The dissolved oxygen concentration was maintained within the threshold established and the fish rate death decrease.


In a stereo image pair, the fundamental matrix encodes the rigidity constraint of the scene. It combines the internal parameters of both cameras (which can be the same) and their relative position and orientation. It associates to image points in one view the so-called epipolar line in the other view, which is the locus of projection of the same 3D point, whose particular position on the straight line is determined by its depth. Reducing the correspondence search to a 1D line instead of the 2D image is a large benefit enabling the computation of the dense 3D scene. The estimation of the matrix depends on at least seven pairs of corresponding points in the images. The algorithm discarding outliers presented here is a variant of the classical RANSAC (RANdom SAmple Consensus) based on a contrario methodology and proposed first by Moisan and Stival in 2004 under the name ORSA. The distinguishing feature of this algorithm compared to other RANSAC variants is that the measure of validity of a set of point pairs is not its sheer number,
but a combination of this number and the geometric precision of the points.


Abstract Microbially induced sedimentary structures (MISS) are microbial traces in sandy deposits. They have been formed by various modes of microbial behaviour in response to the prevailing physical dynamics in shallow-marine environments since early Archaean time. An association of fossils, phosphatic structures and grains, stromatolites and microbial laminated levelling structures is documented from the Zhongyicun Member of Lower Cambrian strata in the Baideng section dated close to 535 Ma. SEM examination demonstrates that microbial laminated levelling structures are the result of the development of microbial mats composed of filamentous structures. We propose that there was a short hiatus after the dolomite layer deposited when the dolomite layer was weathered to form centimetre-scale valleys firstly, and then microbes accumulated in these valleys and formed the microbial laminated levelling structures.


White Rising: The 1922 Insurrection and Racial Killing in South Africa. By Jeremy Krikler. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2005. Pp. xvi, 405; 39 illustrations. $59.95. This is a wonderfully tight and painstaking microanalysis of the "Rand Revolt" of 1922. It was a short-lived miners' strike that began on 10 January, evolved into a declaration of a general strike on 6 March and then into a regional insurrection in the second week in March. By 16 March the last of the killings occurred and on 17 March the strike was abandoned, the miners utterly defeated. In a few intense days it was all over. The superior forces and fire power of the South African military were brought full bore on the static strikers, their uncoordinated commandos and their vulnerable citizenry. For a variety of reasons numbingly detailed by Krikler, it was no contest almost from the start. In some locales, mostly because of foresight, surprise, organization and aggressive leadership, the commandos were able to make significant gains against the police and those defending the mines. But mostly, although the strike was effective, the insurrection fizzled badly. Particularly innovative are Krikler's treatment of the roles of women in backing and prodding the strikers; the impact of service in World War I on the tactics, structure, and vocabulary of the movement; the motives of the strikers; the interplay of nationalism, socialism, and class struggle; and the issues of command. The way in which the strike had been "captured" from the union movement by the more militant "Council of Action" is worth studying, too, provoked as the miners were by the Smuts government's wholehearted support for the employers. The miners were cornered into feeling that they had no place to turn for a fair hearing of their grievances. If I have a complaint about this book, it is that the tone of analysis and shadings of the prose tend clearly to show a preference for the miners' side, almost to the point of rationalizing violent behaviors that ought to be condemned. Krikler seems to want to lay ultimate blame for the racial murders on the capitalists. He seems to be saying that if the miners hadn't been under extreme pressure by the management and if they hadn't felt that their dignity and rights as citizens were being undermined then they would not have been driven to attack the even more exploited and powerless black population in their midst. Mine management was simply interested in profits. …


lnuit elders stress the importance of wearing caribou s h n clothing for winter trips. Although laboratory tests for thermal insulation values of clothing are extensive, caribou skin clothing is rarely tested. The purpose of this research was to compare the thermal comfort of caribou s h n clothing, military winter issue clothing, and northern expedition clothing using experimental and ethnographic methods. To collect the experimental data, each subject wore the ensembles in an environmental chamber designed to simulate travelhng on a sled pulled by a snowmobile in the Arctic winter. Skin temperatures and comfort ratings were analyzed using analysis of variance and multiple regression methods. Ethnographic methods were used to collect 'traditional' knowledge from Inuit elders. Findings indicate that the average skin temperature and comfort ratings dropped significantly less (p < 0.05) when wearing the caribou skin ensemble compared to changes observed when wearing the military or expedition clothing ensembles. There were no significant differences between the military and expedition clothing ensembles. Inuit elders use years of field experiences as a base for their recommendations to use caribou skin clothing for long-term protection for sedentary individuals exposed to a cold winter climate. They also point out the advantages of specific style features and materials for cold weather clothing. In conclusion, the combination of laboratory tests and traditional knowledge has given 2 distinct perspectives which provide a more holistic answer to cold weather clothing needs for people travelling during the Arctic winter.


This is a retrospective descriptive study of transitional cell carcinoma of the urinary bladder.This study presents a ten year retrospective review of the clinico - epidemiological patterns and management of this disease at Kenyatta National Hospital for the year January 1990- December 1999.Over this period 99,028 patients were admitted to all surgical wards in the hospital. Of these 224 patients were clinically diagnosed to have bladder cancer, of whom records were obtained for 127 patients. Of the later 52 patients fulfilled the study inclusion criteria and therefore were entered. An average of 5.2 patients per year was seen. The male to female ratio was 3.7:1. The mean age was 57.19 years with a range of 57years (27 years to 84 years). The incidence increased with age with the majority of the patients being found in the age group 60-69 years with 30.8% of patients. The least affected age group was 20-29 years with 3.8% of patients. The regional distribution (provincial) was; Central 46.2%, Eastern 30.8%, Nyanza 9.6%, Rift valley 5.8%, while Nairobi, North Eastern, Western and Coast provinces had 1.9% each. In ethnic distribution, the Kikuyu tribe represented 51.9%, Kamba 17.3%, Meru 7.7%, and other tribes 17.3%.The prevalence of risk factors include: Alcohol in 28.8%, cigarette smoking in 25%. There was no positive family history. The types of occupations included; farming 65.4%, self-employment 13.5%, salaried employment 9.6%. All of them were in the low income groups. The commonest sign and symptoms were haematuria 98.1%, lower abdominal pains 71.1%, dysuria 32.7% and pelvic mass in 36.5%. They occurred in multiple combinations X The main investigative procedures done in these patients included cystoscopy in 71.2%, ultrasound 46 2%, IVU 32.7% among others. Histologically, transitional cell carcinoma accounted for 67% of all the urinary bladder tumours. In this group, various stages were, muscle invasive stage 42.3%, superficial 38.5%, metastatic 17.3% Ca in situ 1.9%. Majority of the patients 60% had advanced disease.The treatment modalities were based on the stage of the disease and included surgery 48.1%, combination therapy in 23.1%, chemotherapy in 5.8% and radiotherapy in 3.8%.
Surgery was the mainstay of treatment; cystectomy was done in 26.9%, cystostomy and resection of tumour 26.9%. Other surgical methods carried out were transurethral resection (TUR), cystectomy and bladder substitution, channel transurethral resection, cystectomy and ileoconduit. Nine (9) patients (17.3%) were not given any treatment because either the disease was too advanced and died before any treatment was instituted or were lost to follow up.Mortality and outcome of the disease was difficult to assess due to poor follow up, however 67.4 % of the patients were lost to follow-up, 25 % were alive two years after diagnosis and 7.6 % died within one year after of diagnosis. The TCC in this study patterned late advanced disease. It is suggested that early diagnosis, early surgery and combination of other treatment modalities should improve the outcome. This can only be possible with further training of health personnel, the education of the public and availability of improved diagnostic as well as treatment facilities especially cystoscopies.


This article aims at establishing a historical analysis of the impact of the massification of higher education and the resultant inadequate facilities on female and male students' accommodation in Tanzania. Focusing on students' accommodation, this article examines the experience of students' accommodation at the University of Dar es salaam (UDSM) over the past 50 years. It also explores the link between the type of accommodation and the quality of learning, as well as the quality of students' life. Most importantly, it endeavours to scrutinize the different experiences about accommodation between male and female students at the university—within and off-campus—and the conception of the terminology of ' kubebana ' (lit: sharing a bed). The article adopts an exploratory approach to analyze this historical phenomenon from 1961 to 2010, given its compounding nature as the UDSM celebrates its 50 years anniversary. Moreover, the article explores possibilities to address the issue of accommodation in a changing context of public-private partnership. The main sources of data were the focus group discussions and key informants, which were complemented by students' essays and written documents, as well as literature from various written media. Results show that students adapt ' kubebana ' as a coping mechanism, a social capital in the UDSM learning environment, and as a capital to be used later in life. Keywords: massification of higher education, students' accommodation, 'kubebana' .


The aim of this study was to evaluate musculoskeletal symptoms, quality of life and tasks perceived as most tiring by health care workers performing a patient transfer service for a city hall administration in the countryside of São Paulo state. A questionnaire was used for collecting demographic and occupational data; an instrument derived from the "Nordic Questionnaire"; a questionnaire to evaluate quality of life (SF 36) and the BORG scale. In this study, 82% workers reported at least one musculoskeletal symptom over the twelve previous months. Quality of life was affected in the following aspects: pain, social aspects, and vitality. Workers felt that all tasks related to patient transfer required intense physical effort which compromised their musculoskeletal system.


The small GTPase Rac participates in various cellular events such as cytoskeletal reorganization. It has remained, however, largely unknown about intracellular signaling pathways for Rac activation because of the lack of a simple and reliable assay to estimate the activation. Here we describe a novel method to detect the GTP-bound, active Rac in cells by pulling it down with the Rac-binding domain of the protein kinase PAK. Experiments using this method reveal that stimulation of human neutrophils with the Gi-coupled receptor agonists N-formyl-methionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine (fMLP) and leukotriene B4 (LTB4) leads to a rapid and transient increase in the GTP-bound state of Rac2, whereas phorbol myristate acetate (PMA) causes a slow but more sustained activation of Rac2. Pretreatment of cells with pertussis toxin results in defective activation of Rac2 in response to fMLP and LTB4, indicating that coupling of the receptors to Gi plays a crucial role in the activation. Furthermore, the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) inhibitors wortmannin and LY294002 block Rac2 activation elicited by the receptor agonists, but not that by PMA. Thus the Gi-coupled receptors likely mediate Rac2 activation via PI3K, whereas PMA activates Rac2 in a PI3K-independent manner.


By using the entanglement entropy method, in the Gibbons-Maeda(G-M) dilaton space-time, the statistical entropy of the quantum field in a thin film is calculated and the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of the G-M dilaton black hole is obtained.Here, the quantum field is entangled with the quantum states in the black hole and the thin film sticks to the event horizon from outskirt of the black hole.Taking into account the effect of the generalized uncertainty principle on the quantum state density, the difficulty of the divergence of the state density near the event horizon in the brick-wall model is removed.Calculating the statistical entropy of the degrees of freedom entangling to the quantum states in the black hole in the quantum field outside the brick-wall and comparing the result to the entropy from the degrees of freedom inside brick-wall, we see that the two results are consistent but the latter may embody preferably the essence of black hole entropy.Using the residue theorem, the integration difficulty in he calculation is overcome and the result of the paper is founded quantitatively. These calculation and discussion imply that the high density quantum states near the event horizon are strongly correlated with the quantum states in black hole and the ultraviolet cut-off in the brick-wall model is not reasonable. The quantization of gravity field should be considered in the high energy quantum field near the event horizon and the ultraviolet cut-off is not necessary. In the quantum field inside and outside the brick-wall, the degrees of freedom contributing to the black hole entropy are just those correlating with the degrees of freedom in the black hole.


Tumor exomes provide comprehensive information on mutated, overexpressed genes and aberrant splicing, which can be exploited for personalized cancer immunotherapy. Of particular interest are mutated tumor antigen T-cell epitopes, because neoepitope-specific T cells often are tumoricidal. However, identifying tumor-specific T-cell epitopes is a major challenge. A widely used strategy relies on initial prediction of human leukocyte antigen-binding peptides by in silico algorithms, but the predictive power of this approach is unclear. Here, we used the human tumor antigen NY-ESO-1 (ESO) and the human leukocyte antigen variant HLA-A*0201 (A2) as a model and predicted in silico the 41 highest-affinity, A2-binding 8–11-mer peptides and assessed their binding, kinetic complex stability, and immunogenicity in A2-transgenic mice and on peripheral blood mononuclear cells from ESO-vaccinated melanoma patients. We found that 19 of the peptides strongly bound to A2, 10 of which formed stable A2-peptide complexes and induced CD8+ T cells in A2-transgenic mice. However, only 5 of the peptides induced cognate T cells in humans; these peptides exhibited strong binding and complex stability and contained multiple large hydrophobic and aromatic amino acids. These results were not predicted by in silico algorithms and provide new clues to improving T-cell epitope identification. In conclusion, our findings indicate that only a small fraction of in silico–predicted A2-binding ESO peptides are immunogenic in humans, namely those that have high peptide-binding strength and complex stability. This observation highlights the need for improving in silico predictions of peptide immunogenicity.


The aftermath of the Oklahoma City Bombing in the United States led to intense research in the progressive collapse potential of buildings subjected to blast loading. The research works did not, however, address situations where columns in buildings do not fail but suffer some amount of damage under the effect of blast loading. The challenge faced by blast hazard engineers is assessment and determination of residual capacity of blast-damaged columns. This paper presents the results of a residual capacity test program of blast-damaged full-scale reinforced concrete columns. Eight of the columns, previously tested under live explosion loading in the near-field (z 1.0 m/kg1/3) range were tested under static condition to determine their residual capacity. Four undamaged companion columns were also tested and their response compared with that of the blast-damaged columns. In general, two columns with different transverse reinforcement spacing were tested: Conventional and seismic columns. The columns were subjected to axial compression loading up to the service load level of 1000 kN and then loaded in third-point lateral loading until failure. All the previously blast-damaged columns were capable of resisting the service load. Thus, they possessed enough post-damage strength to remain in service. The reduced transverse reinforcement spacing in the seismic columns resulted in a higher residual capacity compared to the conventional columns which had larger transverse reinforcement spacing. Also, the results show that the lower level of damage sustained by columns tested at larger scaled distance resulted in higher residual capacity.


New technology is needed to exploit the potential of lignin as a renewable feedstock for fuels, chemicals and performance products. Fast fluidized bed pyrolysis of different lignins at 400°C yields up to 21 wt% (d.b.) of a phenolic fraction containing 10 wt% (d.b.) of several phenols. Subsequent catalytic hydrotreating of this phenolic fraction with 100 bar of hydrogen in dodecane at 350°C yields mainly cycloalkanes, cyclohexanols and alkanes. For the production of monomeric phenols, it appears that the used ruthenium on carbon is a too active catalyst. However, cyclohexanols may be interesting products, e.g., for use as oxygenates in engine fuel. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 2009


In this paper, we study the radar retrieval of soil moisture as well as canopy parameters in a range of boreal forests. The retrieval is formulated as an optimization problem where the difference between data and prediction of a forward scattering model is minimized. The forward model is a discrete scatterer radar model, and the optimization algorithm is a global optimization scheme known as simulated annealing. The inversion method is first applied to synthetic data assuming hypothetical allometric relationships to make the retrieval possible by reducing the number of unknown vegetation parameters. The inversion algorithm is then validated using the data acquired with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) in June 2010 in central Canada boreal forests in support of the prelaunch calibration and validation activities of NASA's Soil Moisture Active and Passive (SMAP) mission. The inversion results for synthetic data show that the absolute retrieval error in soil moisture and relative retrieval error in canopy height are small, while the relative output error in trunk density could be large. The inversion results for actual field data show a great accuracy in soil moisture retrieval for Old Jack Pine and Young Jack Pine forests but show large retrieval errors for many of the radar pixels in the Old Black Spruce site. This paper shows that L-band radar is capable of retrieving surface soil moisture in forests with a high biomass where the forest structure allows soil moisture information to be carried by scattering mechanisms.


TEXTILE-based composite materials are the rapidly developing light-weight engineering materials. Fabrics constitute the reinforcement component of the composite material. The fabrics used in composites manufacture are referred to as preforms and are especially engineered as a single-fabric system to impart reliability and performance. Preforms constituting continuous-fibres are producible through fabric manufacturing methods of weaving, knitting, braiding and certain nonwoven techniques. A number of novel techniques have evolved, particularly in the last three decades, to engineer 3D fabrics. However, these new indispensable 3D fabric manufacturing methods, which have been primarily devised to organize and assemble essentially three orthogonal sets of yarn (in the fabric-length, -width and thickness directions), have not been a matter of examination from the point of textile technology. A consequence of this has been the misrepresentation of a unique nonwoven 3D fabric-forming principle and process as 3D-weaving. The lack of proper technical information, terms and definitions have led to the mistaken classification of the patents of the various nonwoven 3D fabric manufacturing developments in the weaving category over the years. To represent the nonwoven 3D fabric-forming processes as 3D-weaving is technically not correct even if they bear certain similarities with the weaving process design. This is because in these new processes, the foremost operation of shedding, which is central to the weaving principle and without which the weaving process cannot technically progress, is totally dispensed with. Consequently the obtaining process ceases to comply with the principle of weaving and the resulting 3D fabric is a non-interlaced construction. Clearly this non-interlacing process happens to be fundamentally different from the firmly established interlacing characteristics of the weaving process. The nonwoven 3D fabric-forming process is now recognized by the term 'noobing' and it is designed essentially to assemble three orthogonal sets of yarn, without interlacing them, into a 3D fabric. With this, the constituent yarns of the fabric are free of any crimp. In the absence of any interlacement, the fabric integrity has to be realized through a compulsory binding operation. Because the fabric integrity results from the outermost opposite `interconnected yarns', there is the risk of the fabric splitting up if cut at the surface or internally. The development of an experimental noobing device has upheld these integral characteristics. The noobing process can be classified into uniaxial and multiaxial types, of which the former is comprehensively analysed here as this process type has been mistaken for the 3D-weaving process. The newly gained understanding shows this process could be utilized in the production of certain technical textiles other than preforms as it has a limited near-net shaping capability to produce few `simple' solid cross-sectional profiles. This process can also be employed to produce thick-walled tubular fabrics. The multiaxial noobing process, which has been regarded as multiaxial warp `knitting' process, does not figure in the main focus of the present study. To characterize the practically unknown 3D-weaving process, the concept of 'dual-directional shedding' operation is introduced. The shedding operation of the conventional 2D-weaving process is limited in its design to form a shed in only the fabric-width direction to enable interlacement of two orthogonal sets of yarn (a weft and either a single or a multiple layer warp). In the 3D-weaving process, the dual-directional shedding operation forms multiple sheds in the fabric-width and also the fabric-thickness direction to effect interlacement of three orthogonal sets of yarn (two orthogonal sets of weft and a multilayer warp). Two distinct dual-directional shedding methods have been developed to demonstrate the practicability of the new concept. These methods have been specifically developed to provide `yarn-to-yarn interconnectivity' for producing a network-like 3D woven 3D fabric block. From such a block, preforms of any desired shape, not only cross-sectional profile, could be cut without the risk of its splitting. Such a course of preform manufacture, referred to as universal preforming, could be a new approach to produce preforms for certain composite material applications.


This study was designed to study the role of adenosine in ischaemic preconditioning. The clinical, electrocardiographic and metabolic parameters of ischaemia were compared before and after intracoronary adenosine during percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty in 15 patients with significant stenosis of the left anterior descending artery. Baseline ischaemia was demonstrated by inflating the balloon of appropriate size at its nominal pressure for 30 seconds. Intracoronary adenosine was then administered in dose of 1000 to 6000 mgm/ml. The balloon was repositioned and inflated at nominal pressure for 180 seconds. As compared to 1st balloon inflation, the 2nd balloon inflation produced less severe chest pain, less ST segment deviation on the intracoronary ECG (7.40 +/- 3.94 vs 4.30 +/- 2.15 mm; p < 0.05) and lower coronary sinus lactate levels as compared to the first (0.28 +/- 0.06 vs 0.22 +/- 0.04 mmol/lit; p < 0.05). In conclusion, this study proves that by injecting intracoronary adenosine it is possible to precondition the human myocardium.


The anticipated reduction in the duration education in RIBA validated Schools of Architecture has encouraged a sense of collective openness to exploring other models of professional education delivery. There's never been a better time to be thoughtfully innovative and take the initiative. This lecture will examine the emergent debate about the future of architectural education, placing it within its unique historic tradition and raising questions as to where architecture schools should be situated, who should be teaching it and whether it should be treated as an interdisciplinary, rather than silo-based subject. The lecture also examined a series of case studies and provided a set of actionable insights which should question, provoke and inspire.


This paper reviews identifying characteristics of the urban public hospital and discusses some of the chronic problems, such as funding, image, constituency and acceptance, that this institution has faced. Alternative courses of action for dealing with these problems are considered. No single solution is recommended for every community, but suggestions are made about how to address specific areas of concern.


This paper develops the proposition that the characteristic of the South African built environment can largely be explained by the economic and social institutional framework that continues to characterise this market. The proposition is developed within the context of the Institutional Economics literature, and demonstrates the relevance of this theoretical framework in explaining the present and future trajectory of the South African built environment – the construction and property sectors. While recent public and private sector policies and interventions, have attempted to alter the players, in the South African economy, there is growing evidence, and concern, that a significant institutional "lock in" continues to perpetuate historical market outcomes. There is also a growing realisation that government intervention may not have been successful in changing the institutional framework and structure of the South African built environment. This suggests that when strong institutional "lock in" exists, public sector interventions that attempt to alter market institutional arrangements should target different echelons of the institutional hierarchy.


Abstract BACKGROUND Pediatric occipitothoracic fusion can be challenging because of small size pedicles and thin occipital bone. Three-dimensional (3D) printing technology can help with accurate screw insertion but has not been described for occipital keel plate positioning so far. OBJECTIVE To describe the novel use of 3D technology to position occipital keel plates during pediatric occipitothoracic fixation. METHODS A young boy with segmental spinal dysgenesis presented with asymmetrical pyramidal paresis in all limbs. Developmental abnormities of the cervical spine caused a thinned spinal cord, and because of progressive spinal cord compression, surgical intervention by means of occipitothoracic fixation was indicated at the age of 3 yr. Because of the small-size pedicles and thin occipital bone, the pedicle screws and occipital plates were planned meticulously using 3D virtual surgical planning technology. The rods were virtually bent in order to properly align with the planned screws. By means of 3D-printed guides, the surgical plan was transferred to the operating theater. For the occipital bone, a novel guide concept was developed, aiming for screw positions at maximal bone thickness. RESULTS The postoperative course was uneventful, and radiographs showed good cervical alignment. After superimposing the virtual plan with the intraoperative acquired computed tomography, it was confirmed that the occipital plate positions matched the virtual plan and that pedicle screws were accurately inserted without signs of breach. CONCLUSION The use of 3D technology has greatly facilitated the performance of the occipitothoracic fixation and could, in the future, contribute to safer pediatric spinal fixation procedures.


A modern mobile application processor is a heterogeneous multi-core SoC which integrates CPU and application-specific accelerators such as GPU and DSP. It provides opportunity to accelerate other compute-intensive applications, yet mapping an algorithm to such a heterogeneous platform is not a straightforward task and has many design decisions to make. In this paper, we evaluate the performance and energy benefits of utilizing the integrated GPU and DSP cores to offload or share CPU's compute-intensive tasks. The evaluation is conducted on three representative mobile platforms, TI's OMAP3530, Qualcomn's Snapdragon S2, and Nvidia's Tegra2, using common computation tasks in mobile applications. We identify key factors that should be considered in energy-optimized mobile heterogeneous computing. Our evaluation results show that, by effectively utilizing all the computing cores concurrently, an average of 3.7X performance improvement can be achieved with the cost of 33% more power consumption, in comparison with the case of utilizing CPU only. This stands for 2.8X energy saving.


Background There is a lack of fully validated patient-reported outcome measures for progressive fibrosing interstitial lung disease (ILD). We aimed to validate the King's Brief Interstitial Lung Disease (K-BILD) questionnaire for measuring health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in these patients. We also aimed to estimate the meaningful change threshold for interpreting stabilisation of HRQoL as a clinical end-point in progressive fibrosing ILD, where the current goal of treatment is disease stability and slowing progression. Methods This analysis evaluated data from 663 patients with progressive fibrosing ILD other than idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis from the INBUILD trial. Validation of the measurement properties was assessed for internal consistency, test–retest reliability, construct validity, known-groups validity and responsiveness. We calculated meaningful change thresholds for treatment response using anchor-based (within-patient) and distribution-based methods. Results K-BILD had strong internal consistency (Cronbach's α was 0.94 for total score, 0.88 for breathlessness and activities, 0.91 for psychological, and 0.79 for chest symptoms). The test–retest reliability intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.74 for K-BILD total score. K-BILD demonstrated weak correlations with forced vital capacity (FVC) percent predicted. Known-groups validity showed significant differences in K-BILD scores for patient groups with different disease severity based on use of supplemental oxygen or baseline FVC % pred (≤70% or >70%). We estimated a meaningful change threshold of ≥ –2 units for K-BILD total score for defining patients who remain stable/improved versus those with progressive deterioration. Conclusions Our results validate K-BILD as a tool for assessing HRQoL in patients with progressive fibrosing ILD and set a meaningful change threshold of ≥ –2 units for K-BILD total score. The King's Brief Interstitial Lung Disease (K-BILD) questionnaire is a valid tool for measuring health-related quality of life in patients with progressive fibrosing ILD. The meaningful change threshold for K-BILD total score is ≥ −2 units. https://bit.ly/3v9rU0M


The project is to develop a system, which use optical character recognition (OCR) software to detect words, line and paragraph, pronounce that accordingly. Furthermore to help a visually impaired people. We also added few extra features like voice control switching which execute with respect to given command. This system will help blind people with their daily necessary things. Seeing rising number electronic device made in different aspect of life, ICR system help listening text which are written on paper and help household switching control. Current systems, however, have problems with complexity, high costs, non-open sources and multiple incompatible standards. This project intends to design an open source, reasonably priced and way easy to use ICR, which will be done by interfacing the open source Arduino, Raspberry Pi microcontroller; creating a simple, easy-to-use system to help blind people. The project was carried out in quite a few stages. Firstly, Arduino is the first set for rolling paper on the tray for taking image of the document. Next, webcam will take image to the Raspberry Pi and matching image with its own library for filter and processing its word, text, line and paragraph. Intelligent character recognition is specially used for recognizing typed letter. Last of all, it will convert image as an audio file and gives output to the headphone. Blind people can listen the audio. We used power bank for its power. There are more extra feature added for better communication like home switching like controlling light on/off and fan on/off with the help of voice command.


This study focuses on the stability of discrete-time systems with a time-varying state delay and uncertainties in system matrices. New linear matrix inequality conditions are derived for determining bounds of the delay size to ensure the asymptotic stability. There is no need to assume that the system is stable when the delay vanishes. Conservativeness of the conditions is reduced as much as possible by introducing the free-weighting matrices in a novel way, and using the least inequality in the derivation process. Then a new static output-feedback stabilisation method is proposed with the gain matrix as a direct design variable. Compared with the existing results, the proposed methods indeed give larger delay bounds for many cases.


Spherical microphone arrays have been extensively studied for multimedia applications by both academic and industrial communities. General assumption of such study is based upon a planar wave traveling in free space model. However, in practical applications, acoustic wave reflections from boundary of a confined environment such as rooms or nearby furniture's carrying the array may degrade array performance significantly. In this paper, we present an approach for beamforming and direction of arrival (DOA) estimation using circular microphone array mounted on the equator of a sphere near a bottom boundary where the bottom reflection is dominant over other reflection, which corresponds to the applications such as spherical microphone array set on table or floor. We examine impact of reverberation to the beamforming performance and propose an algorithm to improve the microphone array performance. We first introduce an acoustic spherical scattering model to provide a theoretical background. The boundary reflection model is subsequently developed based on two-path ray theory. We further propose an approach using corrected steering vector to improve the beamforming performance to compensate mismatch of plane wave assumption in free space that the normal beam-forming is based upon. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is evaluated by numerical simulations.


We recast the problem of hydrogel swelling under physical constraints as an energy optimization problem. We apply this approach to compute equilibrium shapes of hydrogel spheres confined within a jammed matrix of rigid beads, and interpret the results to determine how confinement modifies the mechanics of swollen hydrogels. In contrast to the unconfined case, we find a spatial separation of strains within the bulk of the hydrogel as strain becomes localized to an outer region. We also explore the contact mechanics of the gel, finding a transition from Hertzian behavior to non-Hertzian behavior as a function of swelling. Our model, implemented in the Morpho shape optimization environment, can be applied in any dimension, readily adapted to diverse swelling scenarios and extended to use other energies in conjunction.


The Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) in Tervuren is often referred to as one of the last colonial museums in the world. This article provides an overview of the various steps taken in the fundamental transformation process and the plan for renovation of the museum with a view to making it a modern and dynamic Africa museum. For this institution, which is simultaneously a Museum, Research Institute, and Centre of Information Dissemination, a mere change of décor is not sufficient: a fundamental shift in vision, a series of risks, and especially a move towards dialogue and transparency have been part of the process, which has implications that extend far beyond the walls of the museum.


To address the gap of lacking research on the association between coping self-efficacy and loneliness, this study examined this relationship to inform future research and intervention on loneliness. Using data from 151 community-dwelling older adults ages 65 and older, we estimated multivariate logistic regression models with age, race/ethnicity, sex, body mass index, chronic disease composite score, social support, coping self-efficacy, and depression symptoms. Loneliness was reported in 32.1% of participants and negatively associated with coping self-efficacy (OR = 0.68, 95% CI: 0.50–0.93) while controlling for age, race, sex, chronic disease composite score, and body mass index. Our findings suggest that coping self-efficacy may be a target for intervention involving loneliness in future research; however, the causal relationship between coping self-efficacy and loneliness should be explored further.


The question of how scaling up public investment could affect fiscal and debt sustainability is key for countries needing to fill infrastructure gaps and build resilience. This paper proposes a bottom-up approach to assess large public investments that are potentially self-financing and reflect their impact in macro-fiscal projections that underpin the IMF's Debt Sustainability Analysis Framework. Using the case of energy sector investments in Caribbean countries, the paper shows how to avoid biases against good projects that pay off over long horizons and ensure that transformative investments are not sacrificed to myopic assessments of debt sustainability risks. The approach is applicable to any macro-critical investment for which user fees can cover financing costs and which has the potential to raise growth without crowding-out.


It has been proposed that debris flows cut bedrock valleys in steeplands worldwide, but field measurements needed to constrain mechanistic models of this process remain sparse due to the difficulty of instrumenting natural flows. Here we present and analyze measurements made using an automated sensor network, erosion bolts, and a 15.24 cm by 15.24 cm force plate installed in the bedrock channel floor of a steep catchment. These measurements allow us to quantify the distribution of basal forces from natural debris‐flow events that incised bedrock. Over the 4 year monitoring period, 11 debris‐flow events scoured the bedrock channel floor. No clear water flows were observed. Measurements of erosion bolts at the beginning and end of the study indicated that the bedrock channel floor was lowered by 36 to 64 mm. The basal force during these erosive debris‐flow events had a large‐magnitude (up to 21 kN, which was approximately 50 times larger than the concurrent time‐averaged mean force), high‐frequency (greater than 1 Hz) fluctuating component. We interpret these fluctuations as flow particles impacting the bed. The resulting variability in force magnitude increased linearly with the time‐averaged mean basal force. Probability density functions of basal normal forces were consistent with a generalized Pareto distribution, rather than the exponential distribution that is commonly found in experimental and simulated monodispersed granular flows and which has a lower probability of large forces. When the bed sediment thickness covering the force plate was greater than ∼ 20 times the median bed sediment grain size, no significant fluctuations about the time‐averaged mean force were measured, indicating that a thin layer of sediment (∼ 5 cm in the monitored cases) can effectively shield the subjacent bed from erosive impacts. Coarse‐grained granular surges and water‐rich, intersurge flow had very similar basal force distributions despite differences in appearance and bulk‐flow density. These results demonstrate that debris flows can have strong control on rates of steepland evolution and contribute to a foundation needed for modeling debris‐flow incision stochastically.


Author(s): Graybill, Cristina Rhiannon | Advisor(s): Alter, Robert | Abstract: This dissertation explores the representation of masculinity and the male body in the Hebrew prophets. Bringing together a close analysis of biblical prophetic texts with contemporary theoretical work on masculinity, embodiment, and prophecy, I argue that the male bodies of the Hebrew prophets subvert the normative representation of masculine embodiment in the biblical text. While the Hebrew Bible establishes a relatively rigid norm of hegemonic masculinity -- emphasizing strength, military valor, beauty, and power over others in speech and action -- the prophetic figures while clearly male, do not operate under these masculine constraints. Nor does the prophetic body, repeatedly represented as open, wounded, vulnerable, or otherwise non-masculine, conform to the norms of masculine embodiment that are elsewhere strongly enforced in the text. Instead, the prophetic body represents a site of resistance against the demands of hegemonic masculinity and affords the possibility, however, briefly, of alternate, multiple, and open organizations of masculinity not organized around the discipline of the body and the domination of the bodies of others.The introduction establishes the body of Moses as a key site to investigate prophetic embodiment and its relationship to masculinity and prophetic power. While Moses is widely acclaimed in and beyond the text as a successful and even paradigmatic prophet, his body tells another story. Among other peculiarities of embodiment, Moses is afflicted with a stutter and a glowing face, both of which move him beyond the bounds of normative embodiment. Prophecy transforms the experience of the body and the prophetic performance of masculinity alike.The bulk of the dissertation considers this dilemma with respect to the literary or latter prophets of the Hebrew Bible, with particular attention to three examples: Hosea, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah. The body of the prophet is already a problem in the book of Hosea, a classical eighth-century prophetic text. This is particularly apparent within the paired accounts of Hosea's marriage to Gomer and Yahweh's marriage to the gynomorphized Israel in Hos. 1-3. In this text, the demands of the body are negotiated neither by Hosea nor upon his body, but instead are displaced onto the female bodies of Gomer and Israel. The female body provides the material ground to work through the difficulty and demands that prophecy places upon the male subject, in particular the demand for openness. The openness, here largely symbolic, that prophecy demands of the prophet results in the female body being torn open, exposed, and violated.In the case of Ezekiel, the male prophetic body itself becomes the object of concern. But while Ezekiel's body, especially as represented in the theophany and "sign acts" of Ezek. 1-5, dramatically enacts the demands of prophecy, the message itself remains muddled. Like Kafka's hunger artist, Ezekiel's performance directs attention to the impossibility of meaningful communication and to the pain and mutability of the body. Ezekiel also experiences a crisis of masculinity, which escalates in the contrast between Ezekiel's suffering human form and the splendor of Yahweh's male body. The book of Ezekiel attempts to resolve the instabilities of the prophetic body by concluding with a vision of the restored Temple in chapters 40-48. However, the renewed temple body does not replace the suffering prophetic body and the challenge to prophetic masculinity it represents.In Jeremiah, a similar disturbance of masculinity occurs. However, here the material form that the disturbance assumes is not the flesh, but rather the voice. The prophet's voice, at once in excess of his body and intimately a part of it, registers the prophet's failure to utter sounds culturally coded as masculine. Instead, Jeremiah's voice adapts the forms of sound traditionally marked in the ancient Near East as feminine. It also resembles the voice of the hysteric, a key figure in twentieth-century psychoanalytic discourse. As with hysteria, Jeremiah's vocal disturbances subvert both the performance of gender and the organization of meaning by offering the destabilizing cries of an alternate, non-masculine gender performance.In addition, this dissertation considers the prophetic body and the representation of prophetic masculinity in the New Testament book of Revelation. While Revelation draws heavily from the Hebrew prophets and represents itself as a prophetic text, the prophetic body does not occupy a destabilizing role in the text. Instead, the bodies of prophets in Revelation -- of which there are several -- participate in and sustain the text's dominant ideology of masculinity. This ideology, adapted from Roman imperial gender ideals and enacted most dramatically by the messianic figures in Revelation, emphasizes violence against the body of the other as fundamental to masculine performance. The prophetic body, instead of resisting or challenging this gender ideology, contributes to it. The countertextual, subversive power of the prophetic body in the Hebrew Bible to challenge and transform masculinity is lost in the New Testament book of Revelation. In the Hebrew prophetic writings, if not in the book of Revelation, the prophetic body breaks with the normative representations of biblical masculinity. Instead, the bodies of prophets offer the possibility of alternate forms of gender and embodiment in the text. These alternate masculinities are not built upon strength and violence and wholeness, but rather upon vulnerability and openness. The prophetic body exposes the instability of "masculinity" as a category in the Bible, and in the interpretive traditions that have emerged around it. This question of how masculinity is constructed in the Hebrew Bible is of great importance for understanding not just the Bible or the ancient Near East, but also contemporary controversies over gender and anxiety about bodies.


A revision of the Power Approximation for computing (s, S) inventory policies is presented. The revision incorporates modifications which (1) ensure homgeneity in the units chosen to measure demand and (2) ensure the proper limiting behavior of S - s when the variance of demand is extremely small. Computational experience shows that the revision has operating characteristics that are typically within a few percent of optimal, which is nearly as accurate as the original Power Approximation.


The aim of this paper is to illustrate how intercultural communication is affected by language use in Latvia and to show that in accordance with theories of D.L.Horowitz and P.R.Brass (Horowitz, 1985; Brass, 1991) the question of language is a question of conflict in Latvia. The empirical base for this report is the survey "Towards a civic society" conducted by the Baltic Data House. In the second analysis of empirical data, author is trying to show the correlation between language proficiency, language use and intercultural communication, and the hypothesis of the report is that the question of language is a question of conflict, because the language hierarchy is changing in Latvia.


BACKGROUND
While fluoridation is the most effective preventive measure against dental caries, it increases the risk of tooth mottling or fluorosis.

METHODS
A total of 2,003 children aged 5 to 21 years were examined by a dentist following the recommendations of WHO and the standardized system of Möller and Poulsen, including X-ray investigation. The clinical aspects of fluorosis were classified on a 5-point scale. Data on the medical history, socioeconomic conditions, oral hygiene, carbohydrate ingestion and fluoride supplements of these patients were also collected.

RESULTS
The majority of the 2,003 children, 1687 (84.2%), had never received dietary fluoride supplements. Only 93 (4.64% of the total) of the 316 children who had taken fluoride, regularly ingested the recommended daily dose of 1.0 mg F-. This group had 43.2% fewer incidents of tooth decay, and came from the higher socioeconomic environment. Tooth mottling was 9.58 times more frequent in this group of correctly protected children. However, the clinical aspects of fluorosis were minor, with no esthetic damage.

CONCLUSIONS
These results suggest that the fluoride dosage regimen commonly proposed is effective against dental caries and does not need any change to reduce the risk of fluorosis.


Loss of vision has devastating effects on the quality of life of both individuals and their caregivers as well as causing a huge economic burden to families and society. It has been estimated that by 2020 there will be almost 200 million people worldwide losing sight because of dying photoreceptors in age related macular degeneration (AMD). Intense efforts are underway to develop therapies that can prevent or block photoreceptor loss in AMD. These efforts include lifestyle changes, nutritional supplements and neuroprotective agents, but to date they have had only marginal success. These approaches also do not help the growing numbers who have already lost photoreceptors. Another major line of research to help those patients, and the one reviewed thoroughly by Gagliardi et al ., (1) is to develop transplantable photoreceptors that can integrate into the retina, restore light sensitivity and, hopefully, restore vision.


In this article, a simulation study is performed to reveal the devia- tions of the semiparametric binary response model from its parametric counterpart, based on various scenarios including different sample sizes, different bandwidth parameters containing the optimal ones, different forms of the linear index function and two and higher dimensional cases of the explanatory variables when the true model is logistic regression. The method of the Density Weighted Average Derivative Estimator (DWADE) is used in the semi-parametric estimation. A real data set on liquefaction is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the simula- tion results with the results in practice. Additionally, new commands written for the estimation of both models in the Windows based 4.8 version of the XploRe package are introduced. This study may be seen as an updated form of the article by Proenca and Werwatz (1994) which used XploRe commands written for both estimators in an old MS Dos format.


Werlhof in 1735 was the first to describe a symptom complex of hemorrhagic purpura. The essential type of this disease is sometimes referred to as Werlhof's disease. Thrombocytopenic purpura is characterized by multiple hemorrhages into the skin and mucous membranes. One of the earliest indications of hemorrhage may be epistaxis, and the otolaryngologist may be the first to suspect the diagnosis and be instrumental in the institution of early treatment. Thrombocytopenic purpura is characterized by prolonged bleeding time, poor clot retraction, an increase in capillary fragility, and a decrease in circulating platelets. It may be classified as (1) the essential, or primary, type and (2) the symptomatic, or secondary, type. In 1946 Dameshek and Miller suggested that the essential type was due to a splenic factor acting to prevent the formation of platelets. The symptomatic type was found with hypoplastic bone marrow. This may be due to a nutritional


During the last decades, Indonesia has witnessed a rapid expansion in higher education sector. However, a centralized education system had resulted internal inefficiency, poor initiatives-particularly in research and lack of public accountability in many Indonesia universities. Facing these issues, the government of Indonesia launched a new long term vision and reform covering all higher education institutions (both public and private HEIs). This paper, moreover, aims to outline the main characteristics of the higher education sector in Indonesia and reviews major policy developments. The paper will discuss issues and challenges in the development of higher education in Indonesia, particularly in financing of higher education, accessibility, and the development of research capacities. The reform results considerable challenges for HEIs, particularly in financial matters, though it also offers opportunities in the context of independency and autonomy. After a decade of reform, Indonesia's universities still seek the best format and practices for facing a challenging future.


Leica Microsystems is a world leader in microscopes and scientific instruments. Founded as a family business in the nineteenth century, the company's history was marked by unparalleled innovation on its way to becoming a global enterprise. Its historically close cooperation with the scientific community is the key to Leica Microsystems' tradition of innovation, which draws on users' ideas and creates solutions tailored to their requirements.


ABSTRACT In the field of sport and exercise psychology, the systematic review is still considered by many, to be the gold standard literature review. However, reviews like these, which judge whether an intervention works or not, can leave many unanswered questions. When it comes to complex social interventions, failing to suggest reasons for an intervention's efficacy, often means practitioners struggle to successfully implement research findings in the real world. This lack of detail has led many to question the utility of systematic reviews when examining behaviour change interventions in complex social environments. Realist reviews are increasing in popularity because they go beyond asking if an intervention works, to look for theories as to why a programme worked, who it worked for and in what context it worked. However, despite the growing popularity of realist reviews, there is still limited application of this approach across the sport and exercise sciences. This paper aims to increase awareness regarding the utility of realist research by offering an introduction to realist review and an explanation of the steps involved.


In this commentary, Paul De Grauwe traces the origins of the turmoil in the global financial system and explores how to get out of this bad equilibrium. In his view, there is only one way: the governments of the major countries (US, UK, the eurozone, possibly Japan) must take over their banking systems (or at least the significant banks). Governments are the only institutions that can solve the co-ordination failure at the heart of the liquidity crisis. They can do this because once the banks are in the hands of the state, they can be ordered to trust each other and to lend to each other. The faster governments take these steps the better.


The Greek administrative context is characterized by a centralized and bureaucratic culture and is heavily influenced by the ongoing financial crisis. E-government is under development and remains greatly fragmented while adoption is low and resistance by public agencies and citizens is often high. Against this background, this paper provides an in-depth study of four nation-wide e-government projects recently adopted in Greece that were successfully implemented and widely adopted by their intended stakeholders. The study of these projects reveals common enabling factors. Based on our findings, we propose a framework that links together three enabling practices for the adoption of egovernment projects, namely, top-down pressures, agency ownership and user engagement. We discuss how these are interrelated and their implications for improving e-government adoption 'against


Poaching or illegal hunting of wildlife for bushmeat is common in Cote d'Ivoire and particularly in center-western regions where it is actually a major income source contrary to traditional livelihood need. In order to assess the threat and impact of illegal bushmeat off take on sustainable biodiversity and conservation of wildlife resources to fill the information gap we examined the quality and quantity of extracted wildlife fauna for bushmeat in these regions from September 2018 to April 2019. Forty- seven bushmeat data collection sites were considered. Data collection was designed to collect information on the species poached, quantity, sex of poached animals, age estimate as well as poaching methods. A total of 352 wildlife mammals corresponding to 8 orders and 18 species was collected from bushmeat traders and markets. The order of rodents comes largely in the lead with more than half of the specimens encountered that is, 67.05% and the grass cutter species, Thryonomys swinderianusis the most poached and the only one found in all the sites investigated. A significant sex-specific pressure (p<0.009) was noted. Despite 77.78% of the species collected are classified minor concern, it is undeniable that the conservation status of wildlife biodiversity will always be threatened by illegal hunting. It is therefore up to the state authorities to officially cover hunting with clear control measures for the sustainable management of wildlife biodiversity.

 Key words: Bushmeat, illegal hunting, poaching, biodiversity, wildlife, harvest, conservation.


We have investigated the effect of particle shape in Pickering emulsions by employing, for the first time, cubic and peanut-shaped particles. The interfacial packing and orientation of anisotropic microparticles are revealed at the single-particle level by direct microscopy observations. The uniform anisotropic hematite microparticles adsorb irreversibly at the oil-water interface in monolayers and form solid-stabilized o/w emulsions via the process of limited coalescence. Emulsions were stable against further coalescence for at least 1 year. We found that cubes assembled at the interface in monolayers with a packing intermediate between hexagonal and cubic and average packing densities of up to 90%. Local domains displayed densities even higher than theoretically achievable for spheres. Cubes exclusively orient parallel with one of their flat sides at the oil-water interface, whereas peanuts preferentially attach parallel with their long side. Those peanut-shaped microparticles assemble in locally ordered, interfacial particle stacks that may interlock. Indications for long-range capillary interactions were not found, and we hypothesize that this is related to the observed stable orientations of cubes and peanuts that marginalize deformations of the interface.


Research was conducted at the "Kampung Mandar" broiler slaughterhouses located in Riau Street, Kampung Mandar Village, Banyuwangi District. The research aimed to determine (i) the characteristics of carcass buyers, (ii) the level of satisfaction, (iii) the quality of services provided and (iv) factors that affect carcass buyers satisfaction on broiler carcass produced by small scale chicken slaughterhouse. One hundred respondents were selected by accidental sampling method and interviewed using a structured questionnaire. Primary data were obtained from the field (from the customers and chicken slaughterhouses owners) and secondary data were obtained from Central Board Statistics, online media and local government agencies (district office). Data were analyzed using descriptive, factor analysis and multiple regression analysis. The study showed that female traders aged 41-60 years with senior high school education and earned income between IDR. 900.001-1800.000 per month represented broiler carcass buyers. Another findings showed that buyers who considered senior carcass broiler tended to rebuy the product and transferred information to others. The study also found that service quality of broiler slaughterhouse were indicated by "carcass quality assurance and skill sellers", "response to carcass buyers" and "appropriate equipments" and these were able to increase buyers carcass satisfaction. Keywords : poultry, consumer satisfaction, factor analysis.


This research investigates the perceptions of employees at South Winds (the pseudonym), a software engineering company, about using a corporate social networking site for sharing and generating knowledge. It focuses on understanding and explaining how the perceptions of employees from different organisational levels impacted on the usage of the social networking site. Methods of data collection included interviews and focus groups with C-level managers, middle managers and software engineers. Qualitative methods were used for analysing the collected data. Analysis drew on an extended Orlikowski and Gash's technological frames theory (1994) to identify five categories of perceptions relating to technology implementation and use. Applying the concept of framing in this study helped to surface specific areas within which divergence of perceptions occurred. Results showed significant divergences in perceptions about the corporate social networking site in 4 out of the 5 categories across the different levels of the organization. These divergences were found to have arisen largely as a result of information deficiencies. Furthermore, little understanding about the nature of the technology led top management to decide to use an adoption approach that discouraged knowledge sharing and creation through this tool. As a consequence, this study found that there appeared to be little likelihood of creating or sharing knowledge through the corporate social networking site under the observed implementation, although the corporate social networking site was widely perceived as a useful technology for sharing and creating knowledge. Recommendations for realizing potential benefits from using a corporate social networking site include developing plans for aligning organizational perceptions about the corporate social networking site and developing a suitable reward plan based on group performance in order to encourage the employees to create/share knowledge. The findings of this research suggest an extension of the Orlikowski and Gash's (1994) technological frames theory for knowledge management systems. This research also suggests that perceptions about different aspects of a technology may be arranged in a hierarchical chain. This would bring significant implications in designing and implementing technologies.


Problem statement: Pressure and velocity decoupling have been source of problem in solving Navier-Stokes and continuity equation particularly in complex collocated grid. The problem of pressure velocity decoupling is usually reduced by using momentum interpolation to calculate mass flux at face of control volume. Equation of momentum interpolation was derived by assumption that the face of cell is equidistant from two neighbor cell centers and face of cell is collinear with two neighbor cell centers. This assumption is not valid in many unstructured grid and cause significant error. Approach: In this article a simple improvement of momentum interpolation for using in unstructured grid was proposed. The improvement was done by added a correction term to original equation. Results: The method was compared with original method in Kovasznay's flow and Laminar Poisseulli Flow. The method was found able to reduce error about 40% in both cases. Conclusion: The correction added to original momentum interpolation is able to reduce error in Navier-Stokes equation solver on unstructured grid.


This paper reviews recent Mexico-US migration patterns and US reactions to Mexican immigration, explores why there may be a migration hump with two very different economies integrate, and discusses the policy options to deal with the extra migration associated with economic integration in North America. The major conclusion for policy makers is that a migration hump should be anticipated and dealt with; the major implication for economists is that the process of adjustment to new comparative statics equilibria can be important enough to affect economic integration itself. Migration represents one of the many asymmetries in Mexico-US relations- the United States accepts immigrants from many nations, but virtually all Mexican emigrants head for the United States. For most of the 20th Century, the US encouraged or tolerated a "go north for opportunity" mentality, especially in rural Mexico, so that, when Mexico experienced devaluations and economic shocks in the 1980s, many Mexicans "naturally" looked to the US as a safety valve. The economic integration symbolized by NAFTA was supposed to turn the "people relationship" between the US and Mexico into a "trade and investment relationship." US Presidents Bush and Clinton, and Mexican President Salinas, argued that economic integration was the best way to reduce emigration pressures in Mexico. In the words of Mexican President Salinas, "more jobs will mean higher wages in Mexico, and this in turn will mean fewer migrants to the United States and Canada. We want to export goods, not people." (quoted in Bush letter to Congress, May 1, 1991,17). The U.S. Commission for the Study of International Migration and Cooperative Economic Development, however, as well as most migration specialists, predicted that economic integration between the very different Mexican and the US economies would produce a migration hump-temporarily more migration, and then less, because "the economic development process itself tends in the short to medium term to stimulate migration." (Final Report, 1990, xvi). Economic integration and other policies that accelerate economic growth thus create "a very real short-term versus long-term dilemma" for the United States when dealing with unauthorized immigration, since the "the development Solution to unauthorized migration is measured in decades-even generations" (1990, xxxvi). NAFTA went into effect on January 1, 1994, a year that proved to be eventful in Mexico, with a Zapatista uprising, several political assassinations, and a peso devaluation. Legal immigration to the US, and apprehensions of unauthorized Mexicans, fell 10 to 20 percent in 1994, not as much as many expected. Some US politicians and immigration control advocates were able to use footage of "kamikaze" sprints by groups of unauthorized Mexicans through the US port of entry, as well as the lingering effects of recession, to re-elect California Governor Wilson and to approve Proposition 187, a State initiative that, if implemented, would make it more difficult for unauthorized aliens to obtain public services. The number of Mexican-born US residents appears to have increased sharply in the 1990s, supporting the proposition that migration hump is a feature of economic integration. There were 4.3 million legal and illegal Mexican-born residents enumerated in the 1990 Census, 6.3 million in the March 1994 CPS, and 6.7 million in the March 1995 CPS. Over 70 percent of the 1.1 million immigrants waiting to bring their spouses and children to the US are Mexicans and, by some estimates, most of them are already living in the US. Even more Mexicans are expected in the next five years. The number of people living in rural Mexico is likely to be halved from the current 24 to 27 million over the next 10 to 20 years, which means that 3 to 4 million rural households-which average 5 to 6 persons each- that now depend on farming must find nonfarm jobs within commuting distance of their current residences, migrate to Mexican cities for nonfarm jobs, or migrate to the US. Most migration specialists predict that, if Mexico grows at an average rate that is 2 to 3 percent faster than the US growth rate- something that Mexico has been unable to do in the 1990s- the economic gaps that motivate most legal and illegal Mexico to US migration will narrow, and Mexico-US migration will fall to "manageable" levels at about the time that new US immigration control efforts are put fully in place, or in 10 to 20 years. In other words, Mexico-US migration in the mid-1990s is believed to be near the peak of the "migration hump;" migration is expected to diminish after 2005.


Sustainable development and nano-materials is the focus of widespread concern in today's world. Nano-material not only is the main way of material development, but also is closely related to requirement of sustainable development. This paper states the influences of disseminating nano-materials to sustainable development and the traditional system of accounting scientifically, these influences include form of conception of sustainable development, establishment of value system of natural resource and introducing the evaluation system based on data of accounting for enterprises. The aim of these researchs will be references for evaluating the economic effectiveness of resources invested in disseminating nano-materials.


AbetaPP is involved in Cu homeostasis in mouse and man. In vitro observations and in vivo data obtained from AbetaPP mouse models at least provide strong evidence that AbetaPP and Abeta overproduction enables intracellular Cu to be transported out of the cell. The increased Cu efflux seems to lead to a Cu deficiency and a subsequently reduced SOD-1 activity. Studies have shown that a disturbed metal-ion homeostasis with elevated serum Cu levels occurs in Alzheimer and Down's patients and lowered levels in post-mortem AD brain. We conclude that bioavailable Cu has beneficial and specific effects in Alzheimer's disease transgenic mice, and suggest that our observation can be regarded as a proof-of-concept for a prophylactic approach to overcome the observed CNS Cu deficiency in the brain of Alzheimer's disease patients.


Today's wireless core network is based on a circuit-switched SS7 architecture similar to that found in wireline telecommunications networks. With the advent of IP technologies and the tremendous growth in data traffic, the wireless industry is evolving its core networks toward IP technology. Wireless telecommunications started as an offshoot of wireline telephony, and the absence of global standards resulted in regional standardization. Two major mobile telecommunications standards have dominated the global wireless market, namely, TDMA/CDMA developed by the TIA in North America and GSM developed by the ETSI in Europe. As we move toward third-generation wireless, there is a need to develop standards which are more global and collaborative. The global wireless industry has created two new global partnership projects, SGPP and 3GPP2, to address the issue of the limited data capabilities of 2G systems, motivating the partnership projects (PPs) to start work on 3G wideband radio technologies that can provide higher data rates. This work resulted in 3G wireless radio technologies that will provide data rates of 144 kb/s for vehicular, 384 kb/s for pedestrian, and 2 Mb/s for indoor environments, and meet the ITU IMT-2000 requirements. Now that the radio technology standards to support higher data rates have been developed, the PPs are focusing on development of standards for all-IP networks. We discuss the genesis of 3GPP and 3GPP2 IP work, outlining the important architectural differences of the two groups. Currently, 3GPP and 3GPP2 offer divergent proposals that need to be harmonized if convergence toward an IP-based mobile telecommunications networks is to become a reality.


This article is discussing about experiences of conducting AFLES (ASEAN Future Leaders Summit), which started in 2013 with the collaboration between Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and Prince of Songkla University, Thailand (PSU). AFLES is an action-packed summit meant for ASEAN youth with exciting forums, discussions, lectures, team-work, outdoor activities, community work, services, sight-seeing and cultural events. With the main objectives of developing ASEAN youth community in terms of their leadership skills and to serve as a platform for ASEAN youth to get together and connected to each other, AFLES for the last sixth term (2013-2018), has evolved to be a looking after summit to participate by ASEAN university student leaders. Over the years AFLES has developed and progressed with a few more collaborators, namely AKEPT (Malaysia Higher Education Leadership Academy), UiTM (Universiti Teknologi MARA), UUM (Universiti Utara Malaysia) and UKM (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia). Community development, ASEAN unity and harmonization, and Internationalization of Higher Education Institutions in ASEAN are discussed regarding to the sustainability of AFLES in conducting an international program for youth across ASEAN region.


The synthesis and characterisation of ruthenium (II)
bis-(1 ,10-phenanthroline) and bis-(2 ,2 1-bipyridyl) complexes containing amino and isothiocyanate phenanthroline and pyridine ligands are described. These complexes were
characterised using HPLC, UV/vis spectroscopy,
electrochemistry, NMR, IR, and emission spectroscopy. HPLC
was used to determine the purity of the various complexes.

Electronic spectra and electrochemical measurements indicate that most likely, the 2 ,2 '-bipyridyl
and 1 ,10-phenanthroline ligands are the emitting ligands and the amino and isothiocyanate phenanthroline and pyridine
ligands act as the spectator ligands.

These complexes were subsequently conjugated to
biological materials, including albumins, immunoglobulins and poly-L-lysine. The complexes were bound at different sites on the biomolecules, via the lysine residues, the
carbohydrate moieties and via the tyrosine residues.

The effect of conjugation on the spectroscopic
properties of the complexes was examined. The absorption
spectra were found to exhibit changes in the MLCT band with
the absorption wavelength maximum experiencing slight red
shifts together with general band broadening effects. The
emission decay behaviour was also investigated. The unbound
complexes were found to exhibit single exponential decay
behaviour and the bound complexes exhibited essentially
double exponential behaviour. From the double exponential
decay fits, the first short-lived species was suggested to be a quenched bound species whilst the second species probably arises from a bound species which is considerably protected from the effects of quenching molecules.

The synthesis and characterisation of a number of
bis-(1 ,10-phenanthroline) (phen), and bis-(4,4'-dimethyl-
2, 2'-bipyridyl) (dmbpy), ruthenium (II) complexes containing a series of pyridyltriazole ligands are described. The ruthenium ion may bind via the Nl'/ N 2 ' or n4' of the triazole ring. The most favourable coordination mode being dependent on the position of a substituent on the triazole ring. Coordination isomers were obtained and separated by semi-preparative HPLC methods. The electrochemical results suggest that the phen and dmbpy ligands are the emitting ligands and that the pyridyltriazole ligands are the spectator ligands.

The acid-base chemistry of those pyridyltriazole
complexes which can undergo protonation / deprotonation
reactions was investigated and the results substantiated the
coordination modes proposed using NMR data for the
complexes. The ground state pKa values show that there is
a strong a-donating effect from the triazole ring to the
ruthenium ion. Also, the excited state pKa* values are
lower than the ground state pKa values which indicates that
the pyridyltriazole ligands do not participate in the
emission process. This study completes investigations which
were initially conducted on the 2 ,2 '-bipyridyl analogues.


Disabled children are more likely to be abused than their non-disabled peers. Despite this heightened risk, the abuse of disabled children goes undetected and under-reported. This qualitative study investigated the specific issues faced by practitioners in Scotland in supporting disabled children at risk of significant harm. Interviews were held with participants from six local authority areas and across five different services and five focus groups with Child Protection Committees (total 61 participants). There were positive messages about putting the child at the very heart of child protection assessment and intervention, regardless of any impairment a child may have. However, there was also concern that practice was at times parent-centred. Some participants appeared to be 'muddling through' in practice and many practitioners lacked confidence when working with disabled children. Data from this study suggests that thresholds for disabled children may be higher than for non-disabled children. Participants reported high levels of interagency working and saw this as inherently positive, although they recognised some failings and tensions. There is widespread commitment across the child protection system to putting the child at the centre. However, getting it right for every child does not mean treating every child the same.


Prolonged exposure to specific media programs has been observed to develop certain perceptions, attitudes and particular constructions of reality. As a powerful medium that captures the attention of a wide range of audiences, television (TV) soap operas shape and reshape the latter's values and beliefs. This paper aims to determine what information co-productions of Philippine and Malaysian TV companies provide Filipino viewers in terms of knowledge constructions about Malaysia and its culture. Two TV soap operas, otherwise known as telenovela or teleserye, formed the bases of the investigation. Data were gathered from 80 discussants through Focus Group Discussions. Findings reveal that much of the mediated constructions of Malaysia and its culture have been limited to what the narrative yarns of the TV soap operas provide. Since the TV soap operas were so structured as to tell stories about cultural conflicts and human struggles, viewers' constructions of Malaysia and its culture revolved mainly around interracial relations, arranged marriages, the practice of Islam, landmarks of Malaysia and the Chinese presence in that country.


This paper reports a flight simulation study where airline flight crews were to handle unexpected situations, as part of the "Manual Operations for 4 th Generation Airliners" (Man4Gen) EU research project. The analysis of their behaviour combined a cognitive systems engineering perspective with behavioural analysis methods used in aviation industry. Hollnagel's Contextual Control (COCOM) and Extended Control (ECOM) Models are applied to examine the strategies with which the flight crew responded to the simulated events. The outcome of this analysis is combined with the results of industry expert analysis of the actions that flight crew were expected to perform. ECOM illustrates the different strategies applied to handling the situation.


Iron deficiency in humans causes desensitization of erythroid progenitors to erythropoietin, the principal cytokine for erythroid survival, proliferation, and differentiation. This nutrient deprivation response acts in a lineage-selective, non-apoptotic manner to restrain expansion of the tissue responsible for the majority of iron consumption, thereby triaging iron utilization under conditions of deficiency. The molecular basis for this response is incompletely understood but involves transferrin receptor 2 (TfR2) and aconitase enzymatic activity as extra- and intracellular iron sensors. Here, we identify a multi-component, integrated module connecting these two elements of erythroid iron sensing with endo-lysosomal trafficking, receptor surface delivery, and configuration of EpoR signaling. Specifically, iron and aconitase activity modulate the rate of TfR2 catabolism by cathepsin protease activity. Scribble, a conserved regulator of receptor transport and signaling, binds TfR2 and serves as a downstream effector through to its co-catabolism. Scribble levels in turn influence surface delivery of the erythropoietin receptor (EpoR), which physically interacts with both Scribble and TfR2. The TfR2-dependent downregulation of Scribble associated with iron deprivation diminishes surface EpoR density and skews its signaling from JAK-STAT to Akt pathways. Mice with surface-trapped, endocytosis-defective EpoR fail to develop anemia in response to iron deficiency. These findings establish a tissue-specific nutrient sensing pathway relevant to the pathogenesis of human anemias and their resistance to erythropoietin therapy. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


In order to process multitasking driver behavior effectively, an improved driver cognitive behavior modeling method of ACT-R is proposed in this paper. The manual module and visual module of ACT-R are concatenated directly to cope with human subconscious/unconscious behavior. A parallel processing method is proposed to mimic the parallel reactions style of a given cerebral area of human brain's reaction to the physical characteristics of the stimulus. Drive behavior assorting and risk level ranking method are applied to improve the model's executive efficiency. The results of the software simulation show that the improvements of the ACT-R cognitive architecture are efficient and flexible


Asparagus is a popular vegetable rich in healthy functional components. However, the process of its production leaves ferns from aboveground parts and roots from underground parts as unusable parts, and this is an issue to be resolved. In our previous studies, large amounts of rutin were noted in the cladophylls and storage roots (brown and epidermis), and the protodioscin content was high in buds, in the soil-covered section of spears, and in rhizomes. This study was conducted to examine the distribution of growth-inhibitory activity and mineral contents in different parts of asparagus. Correlations, including representative functional components (rutin and protodioscin), were examined. The results suggest there are differences in growth-inhibitory activity of different parts of asparagus. The growth-inhibitory activity was strong in the buds, rhizome, and absorptive and storage roots, and weak in the cladophylls and lateral branches. The percent N content of the aboveground part of asparagus was high compared with that in the aboveground part of other crops. Although the percent K content was similar to the mean of the aboveground part of other crops, it was higher than that in general green manure, suggesting the residual stems and leaves of the aboveground part of asparagus are effective green manure. In the aboveground part of asparagus, the rutin content and percent N and K content were higher, whereas growth-inhibitory activity tended to be low, suggesting that when no disease developed in the aboveground part, it can be used as an organic substance.


Background In diabetic patients, cardiovascular disease (CVD) is known to be the leading cause of mortality. Because dyslipidaemia can cause CVD, the management of dyslipidaemia is very important, for example by using statins to reduce low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C). Purpose To evaluate the use of stains in the management of dyslipidaemia in diabetic patients, based on the updated National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel 3 (NCEP ATP3) guidelines and American Diabetes Association (ADA) guidelines. Materials and methods The authors retrospectively evaluated the lipid profiles of diabetic outpatients (age >40), who started statins for the first time during the first half of 2010. The criteria of evaluation on starting statins were high LDL-C level (over 100 mg/dl) or 70 mg/dl with CVD: the goals of treatment were LDL-C <100 mg/dl or <70 mg/dl with CVD. Results The patients totalled 69 (100% male), their mean age was 66±5. Among them, there were 56 patients with CVD (81%). 68(99%) had their cholesterol level measured before treating with statins. The cholesterol level was measured again on average 167 days after starting to take statins. The mean initial LDL-C level was 136±16 mg/dl. 99% (n=68) met the criteria for starting statins. After taking statins, their mean level fell to 90±29 mg/dl. So most patients missed the target and HDL-C levels showed an average reduction of 43±8 mg/dl. Only 26% (n=18) of patients reached the guideline goals. Atorvastatin was the most frequently used the statins (n=43, 43%). 13% (n=9) of patients changed to the other drugs, but no patients stopped taking their medicine because of complications. Conclusions The authors found that 98% of our patients followed the guideline for initiation of statins. But only 26% of patients reached the NCEP ATP3's updated guidelines. So The authors recommend shortening the time to test to check LDL-C after starting the statins.


The collective interactions of many partons in the first stage of the collisions is the usual accepted explanation of the sizable elliptical flow. The clustering of color sources provides a natural framework of partonic interactions. In this scheme, we show a reasonable agreement with RHIC data in both the dependence of v 2 on transverse momentum and in the shape of the nuclear modified factor on the azimuthal angle for different centralities. We show the predictions at LHC energies for Pb-Pb. In the case of proton-proton collisions a sizable v 2 is obtained at this energy.


Soft non-covalent interactions are important to bulk property materials, but can also affect molecular or single polymer chain properties in optoelectronic materials. S–F and S–O interactions are often used in material design to planarise π-systems and increase conjugation length, but how these interactions might actually be stabilising is still not fully understood. Here, computational analysis using symmetry adapted perturbation theory and natural bond orbital methods uncovers the key electrostatic interactions between sulfur and neighbouring heteroatoms within the same molecule or polymer chain. A future design rule for materials hoping to affect torsional conformation using these types of interactions is to consider the direction of dipoles of functional groups.


Vocational psychology is divided between two conflicting paradigms: Trait-based, exemplified by Holland's (1997) theory, and social–cognitive, exemplified by Social-Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT). Scientifically, this division is problematic, as scientific truth is partially determined by consensus among experts (Kuhn, 1970). We propose that the trait-based and social–cognitive perspectives can be integrated—not by subsuming SCCT into Holland's (1997) model as suggested by Armstrong and Vogel (2009, 2010) but by reinterpreting traits in terms of social–cognitive units. SCCT lacks the scope and explanatory power to accomplish this task partially because, as we detail, the theory relies on many trait constructs itself. To accomplish our integration, we introduce an influential theory from the personality literature: The Cognitive-Affective Personality System (CAPS; Mischel & Shoda, 1995). We describe CAPS and highlight its parallels with SCCT. We then explain how trait-based accounts of vocational interests and cognitive abilities can be translated into CAPS units. We conclude by describing how trait constructs can still be viable within the CAPS framework and by calling for empirical research to put our propositions to the test.


Abstract Objective Local health departments (LHDs) have little guidance for operationalizing community resilience (CR). We explored how community coalitions responded to 4 CR levers (education, engagement, partnerships, and community self-sufficiency) during the first planning year of the Los Angeles County Community Disaster Resilience (LACCDR) Project. Methods Sixteen communities were selected and randomly assigned to the experimental CR group or the control preparedness group. Eight CR coalitions met monthly to plan CR-building activities or to receive CR training from a public health nurse. Trained observers documented the coalitions' understanding and application of CR at each meeting. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze structured observation reports around the 4 levers. Results Analysis of 41 reports suggested that coalitions underwent a process of learning about and applying CR concepts in the planning year. Groups resonated with ideas of education, community self-sufficiency, and engagement, but increasing partnerships was challenging. Conclusions LHDs can support coalitions by anticipating the time necessary to understand CR and by facilitating engagement. Understanding the issues that emerge in the early phases of planning and implementing CR-building activities is critical. LHDs can use the experience of the LACCDR Project's planning year as a guide to navigate challenges and issues that emerge as they operationalize the CR model. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2016;10:812–821)


The SHAM-sensitive alternative oxidase has been studied in Tetrahymena pyriformis strain ST as a function both of growth state and of chloramphenicol treatment. In low density cultures the total alternative oxidase activity, as revealed by SHAM titration in the presence of CN-, is equivalent to 17% of total respiration and is slightly utilized at all times. Stationary phase cells have somewhat less of the oxidase and it is not utilized even in CCCP-uncoupled cells. Respiration in chloramphenicol-treated cells is 100 % CN--resistant. Alternative oxidase activity is equivalent to 3040% of this total and one third of it is active. The remaining 60% residual respiration is due to unknown oxidases. Following CCCP-uncoupling, a CN--sensitive pathway is demonstrable and the alternative oxidase is fully utilized. The higher proportion of alternative oxidase in chloramphenicol-treated cells is brought about by its conservation at a time when the cytochrome chain is becoming non-functional. There is no large scale induction of the alternative oxidase.