BACKGROUND
The reinforcing properties of orally self-administered drugs have been evaluated by using choice procedures. The preference for the drug over a nondrug alternative has indicated that the drug has greater value than the nondrug alternative as a reinforcer at some drug concentrations. However, at large drug concentrations, the fluid deliveries of the drug may be equal to or less than those of the nondrug alternative, whereas the actual drug intake (milligrams per kilogram of body weight) may continue to increase. In this study, we used behavioral economics to evaluate the reinforcing strength of ethanol in conditions where baseline ethanol fluid deliveries were greater than, equal to, or less than those of the concurrently available water.

METHODS
Four male rhesus monkeys were allowed access to ethanol (2%, 8%, or 32%) and water for 2 hr/day under a fixed ratio (FR) 4 reinforcement schedule. At each ethanol concentration, the FR for both fluids was gradually increased to FR 64.

RESULTS
During the FR 4 schedule, the fluid deliveries of ethanol at 2%, 8%, and 32% were greater than, equal to, and less than those of water, respectively. When the FR was increased at 2% ethanol, fluid deliveries and responding decreased for both the ethanol and water. When the FR was increased at 8% ethanol, water fluid deliveries and responding decreased more rapidly than did those of ethanol. When the FR was increased at 32% ethanol, the ethanol fluid deliveries remained the same across all FRs, whereas water fluid deliveries decreased rapidly. At 8% and 32% ethanol, the responding for ethanol, relative to water, increased dramatically.

CONCLUSIONS
In behavioral economic terms, demand for ethanol was more inelastic regardless of whether the ethanol or water maintained more absolute fluid deliveries at baseline FRs. Therefore, researchers should examine the reinforcing effects of ethanol in a variety of concentration and schedule conditions rather than drawing inferences regarding reinforcing effects simply based on a preference measure.


Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic affected the usage of social media and other attitudes, such as eating routines. In the present study, the relationship between social media addiction and attachment, eating behavior, and emotion regulation was analyzed in individuals who had an experience of online education or working online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: This study consists of 194 participants who experienced online working or education in Turkey during the COVID-19 pandemic. Demographic form, Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale, Inventory of Experiences in Close Relationships, The Emotion Regulation Difficulty Scale Brief Form, and Eating Attitudes Test-Short Form were used to collect related information. According to demographic informa-tion, the present study consists of 141 female and 44 male participants. Results: Anxious attachment, eating behavior and its 2 subscales which were social pressure and preoc-cupation with eating, emotion dysregulation, and its all subscales were found positively correlated with social media addiction. Regression analyses revealed that only anxious attachment (t = 8.01, P < .001) and "goals" that is subscale of emotion dysregulation were found as a predictor of social media addiction (t = 4.96, P < .05). In addition, a statistically significant relationship was found between the increase in the frequency of social media usage during the pandemic and social media addiction. Conclusion: According to the results of the study, the usage of social media has increased during the pandemic period, and this increase has brought up the risk of social media addiction. As a result, it was emphasized that the relationship between attachment types and emotion regulation should be consid-ered in future studies about social media addiction. © Author(s).


Forest dynamics describe the change in structure and composition of forests over time, and is mainly driven by forest growth, a process resulting from size increase and mortality of trees, and recruitment of new individuals. An understanding of forest growth is essential for decision-making and research. An appropriate characterization of growth is only possible through the remeasurement of permanent sample plots over time. Although Chile has a continuous forest inventory system, it has several deficiencies which prevent the effective study of forest growth, mainly because it focuses on stand-level variables and stock estimates but lacks data for individual trees. Furthermore, access to the raw data is limited. In addition, maintaining long-term monitoring of plots to evaluate growth is difficult because of budget restrictions. These combined factors jeopardize the provision of key information regarding native forest dynamics and growth. We propose the establishment of a network of permanent sample plots in the Chilean National System of Protected Areas. Finally, we discuss a monitoring system based on this network by highlighting the advantages in terms of research, dissemination, outreach, and the ease of adding non-woody attributes.


Aim: The aim of the study was to analyse symptom relief and surgical outcomes of women with Pelvic organ prolapse (POP). Material and methods: A total of 100 women were enrolled in the study to be followed upto 6 months post surgery. After excluding 14 patients due to attrition, 86 patients were analysed. Vaginal hysterectomy and anterior colporrhaphy was done in all cases. Site specific repair was decided upon case to case basis. They were followed post operatively with regard to symptom relief and anatomical correction was analysed at 6 months using Pelvic Organ Prolapse-Quantification (POP-Q) System. Results: The incidence of POP is highest between 40-50 years of age and with parity >4. Using POP-Q staging system, 70.9% women had stage III prolapse, 17.4% had stage II, 9.3% had stage IV and 2.3% had stage I prolapse. Women with dysuria and low back ache were the least to get relieved of the symptom after surgery. The improvement of the symptoms were statistically significant with p-value <0.05. There was 86% improvement of stress urinary incontinence (SUI) when anterior colporrhaphy was combined with anti-incontinence surgery. The number of women who resumed sexual activity after surgery increased to 73% from 51.1% with significant p-value of <0.05. There was significant restoration of anatomy in point Ba (mean length from +4.05 to 2.1), point Bp (mean length from +1.8 to -2.3) and point C (mean length from +3.5 to -5.19) after surgery. Conclusion: There is significant anatomical restoration and symptom relief after surgery. The surgery had a positive effect on sexual activity.


Simultaneous measurements of the atmospheric electrical conductivity (σ) and meteorological parameters were carried out at Jnanabharathi campus, Bangalore University (an urban station), Bengaluru, (12.96° N, 77.56° E) for the first time.  Gerdien condenser setup for σ and mini boundary layer mast (micro meteorological tower) for weather parameters was used in this study.  The observations show that the change in daily and weekly variations of σ is strong dependent of activity of Radon ( 222 Rn) gas and meteorological parameters (which defines the stability of the lower troposphere), respectively.  We observed significant influences of atmospheric convective instability on the σ and a negative correlation of -0.56 was found between σ and accumulated rain fall for 2014.  The average σ for the study period was found to be 4.02 ± 0.02 x 10 -14 S/m with higher values during winter compared to summer and monsoon.   In future it is planned to use the air conductivity measurements for atmospheric stability, pollution and climate change studies.


AIMS
To use the rs1229984 variant associated with alcohol consumption as an instrument for alcohol consumption to test the causality of the association of alcohol consumption with hay fever, asthma, allergic sensitization and serum total immunoglobulin (Ig)E.

DESIGN
Observational and Mendelian randomization analyses using genetic variants as unbiased markers of exposure to estimate causal effects, subject to certain assumptions.

SETTING
Europe.

PARTICIPANTS
We included a total of 466 434 people aged 15-82 years from 17 population-based studies conducted from 1997 to 2015.

MEASUREMENTS
The rs1229984 (ADH1B) was genotyped; alcohol consumption, hay fever and asthma were self-reported. Specific and total IgE were measured from serum samples.

FINDINGS
Observational analyses showed that ever-drinking versus non-drinking, but not amount of alcohol intake, was positively associated with hay fever and inversely associated with asthma but not with allergic sensitization or serum total immunoglobulin (Ig)E. However, Mendelian randomization analyses did not suggest that the observational associations are causal. The causal odds ratio (OR) per genetically assessed unit of alcohol/week was an OR = 0.907 [95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.806, 1.019; P = 0.101] for hay fever, an OR = 0.897 (95% CI = 0.790, 1.019; P = 0.095) for asthma, an OR = 0.971 (95% CI =  0.804, 1.174; P = 0.763) for allergic sensitization and a 4.7% change (95% CI = -5.5%, 14.9%; P = 0.366) for total IgE.

CONCLUSIONS
In observational analyses, ever-drinking versus not drinking was positively associated with hay fever and negatively associated with asthma. However, the Mendelian randomization results were not consistent with these associations being causal.


Abstract. The main aim of the paper is to assess the consistency of five years of Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment-2/Metop-A [GOME-2] total ozone columns and the long-term total ozone satellite monitoring database already in existence through an extensive inter-comparison and validation exercise using as reference Brewer and Dobson ground-based measurements. The behaviour of the GOME-2 measurements is being weighed against that of GOME (1995–2011), Ozone Monitoring Experiment [OMI] (since 2004) and the Scanning Imaging Absorption spectroMeter for Atmospheric CartograpHY [SCIAMACHY] (since 2002) total ozone column products. Over the background truth of the ground-based measurements, the total ozone columns are inter-evaluated using a suite of established validation techniques; the GOME-2 time series follow the same patterns as those observed by the other satellite sensors. In particular, on average, GOME-2 data underestimate GOME data by about 0.80%, and underestimate SCIAMACHY data by 0.37% with no seasonal dependence of the differences between GOME-2, GOME and SCIAMACHY. The latter is expected since the three datasets are based on similar DOAS algorithms. This underestimation of GOME-2 is within the uncertainty of the reference data used in the comparisons. Compared to the OMI sensor, on average GOME-2 data underestimate OMI_DOAS (collection 3) data by 1.28%, without any significant seasonal dependence of the differences between them. The lack of seasonality might be expected since both the GOME data processor [GDP] 4.4 and OMI_DOAS are DOAS-type algorithms and both consider the variability of the stratospheric temperatures in their retrievals. Compared to the OMI_TOMS (collection 3) data, no bias was found. We hence conclude that the GOME-2 total ozone columns are well suitable to continue the long-term global total ozone record with the accuracy needed for climate monitoring studies.


This paper investigates the field of corporate management – where experimentation is vital – in order to examine the role of metaphors in paradigm shifts. Metaphor and science are not mutually exclusive and both theorists and managers resort to metaphorical thinking to envisage new theories and practices. The basic hypothesis is that, by stimulating heuristic thinking and opening new vistas, new metaphors can trigger paradigm shifts and reflect them as well. Several approaches are tested in an attempt to detect paradigm shifts through metaphors: a diachronic perspective is adopted to review the major management concepts and their authors from this perspective. It appears that neither initial training and nationality, nor historical benchmarks can be used as reliable bases. Nor are schools of thought telling enough. Metaphorical veins do offer a more accurate basis for analysis, though detecting paradigm shifts in the Kuhnian sense seems to be very challenging. Ultimately, the chaos theory and the notions of open, non-linear, complex systems are likely to offer new insight into the current changes in management viewpoints, which could point at a potential paradigm shift. Systematically tracking emerging metaphors in the field will be required to confirm the trend.


The rheological properties and phase orientation of liquid crystalline polymer (LCP) melts flowing in a nanochannel with different surface roughness are investigated by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Simulation results show the surface roughness has great impact on the rheological properties and phase orientation of LCP melts in the nanochannel (cross section is 12nm). As the amplitude of serrations increases, the shear viscosity increases nonlinearly and the value of orientational order parameter decreases. When the serration amplitude is larger than 1.1nm, a phase transition (from nematic to isotropic phase) of LCP melt happens, which makes flowing in nanochannels more difficult. On the other hand, the influence of serration period on the shear viscosity and orientational order parameter are found not so obvious. Findings in this study will be helpful for injection molding plastic products with nanofeatures.


The paper presents an efficient method for computational aeroacoustics applied to simulate the flow and the acoustics for a static laryngeal model considering the vocal folds widely open. The work analyzes the whisperlike process defined as the sound generated by the turbulent glottal airflow in the absence of vocal fold vibration. A decomposition of the flow variables is used that allows separation of flow and acoustic computations. The approach consists in solving the low Mach number flow field by incompressible large eddy simulation. This provides the possibility to compute the acoustic sources. The inhomogeneous wave equation derived from the fundamental equations of motion for a compressible fluid is employed to compute the acoustic field. The purpose of the study is to provide realistic numerical predictions of the flow patterns and the generated acoustic field in the glottis and the vocal tract regions.


The NF-kappa B (NF-κB) transcription factors, which have critical roles in immune function, are translated as large precursor proteins that are proteolytically processed to form the mature transcription factor. However, expression of p50, the mature form of NF-κB1, does not fully compensate for loss of the p105 precursor form, which suggests that the precursor may have a distinct function of its own. Waterfield et al. now propose that one such function of p105 is to interact directly with and to inhibit the MAP (mitogen-activated protein) kinase kinase kinase Tpl2. Toll-like receptors recognize infection by binding bacterially derived molecules like lipopolysaccharide (LPS). The Tpl2 protein kinase participates in signaling from Toll-like receptors to the nucleus. Waterfield et al. report that LPS-induced activation of Tpl2 is lost in macrophages from mice lacking p105. The authors confirmed previous reports that p105 interacts with the Tpl2 protein in vivo. Expression of both proteins in 293 cells indicated that the interaction stabilizes the Tpl2 protein, but also inhibits the kinase activity of Tpl2. Tpl2 protein isolated from wild-type macrophages in a complex with p105 lacked kinase activity, and stimulation of cells with LPS caused release of the kinase. The authors' model expands the role of NF-κB1 in LPS signaling from the traditional one of activating target genes (mediated by the mature form) to one in which the precursor form of the transcription factor modulates upstream signals in a distinct gene-regulatory pathway mediated by MAP kinases. M. R. Waterfield, M. Zhang, L. P. Norman, S.-C. Sun. NF-κB1/p105 regulates lipopolysaccharide-stimulated MAP kinase signaling by governing the stability and function of the Tpl2 kinase. Mol. Cell 11, 685-694 (2003). [Online Journal]


The purpose of this study was to investigate the contribution of public private partnership towards access to quality secondary education in Temeke Municipality in Dar es Salaam. The specific objectives of the study were based on key players or partners in provision of secondary education. They included:To identify key players or partners in provision of secondary education in Temeke Municipality, ways used by PPP to contribute to education access in secondary education in Temeke Municipality and challenges of PPP in provision of secondary educations in Temeke Municipality; also to examine the contribution of PPP in terms of provision of quality teaching and learning environment and the stakeholder's suggestions on how to improve the contribution of PPT towards the quality of education. The study participants included 120 respondents from the Temeke Municipality in Dar es Salaam who were selected using a purposive, stratified sampling and random sampling. The study used a standard questionnaire and interview to gather data.. The study findings revealed that PPP improvements has to be given first priority so as to prevent schools from reverting to negative practices and also for better access to quality secondary education, in order to increase better performance results for students and reduced public funding. Furthermore, in order to improve the quality of education, governments should consider adding capacity building components to voucher programs. This study concluded that both key players who are government and non government secondary school has to participate full in the contribution of education access especially to secondary school and all parteners need towork in increasing student access to secondary education.


GRB970828 was the first well-localized γ-ray burst (GRB) X-ray afterglow for which no optical afterglow was found despite a prompt, deep search down to Rlim ∼ 24.5 mag. We report the discovery of a short-lived radio flare within the X-ray localization error circle of this burst. Such radio flares are seen in about 25% of GRB afterglows and their origin is not well understood. The precise radio position enabled us to identify the likely host galaxy of this burst, and to measure its redshift, z = 0.9578. The host appears to be an interacting/merging system. Under the assumption that the X-ray afterglow is mainly due to synchrotron mechanism we infer the optical afterglow flux. The observed upper limits to the optical flux are easily explained by invoking an intervening dusty cloud within the host galaxy. These observations support the idea that GRBs with no detectable optical afterglows or "dark GRBs" can be due to dust extinction within the host galaxies. The census of dark GRBs can then be used to constrain the fraction of the obscured star formation in the universe. We argue that the existing data already indicate that the obscured star-formation rate is no more than 1/2 of that seen at UV and optical wavelengths. Subject headings: gamma rays:bursts – radio continuum:general – cosmology:observations Partially based on the observations obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory which is operated by the California Association for Research in Astronomy, a scientific partnership among California Institute of Technology, the University of California and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Palomar Observatory, California Institute of Technology, MS 105-24, Pasadena, CA 91125 National Radio Astronomy Observatory, P. O. Box O, Socorro, NM 87801 Current address: Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287


The aim of this literature review is to determine child welfare social worker's perceptions of pregnant women who use marijuana versus pregnant women who use opiates. Differences in risk perception will be assessed and compared based on age, gender, ethnicity, education level, place of employment, level of income, and history of substance use. The study is important because there is a gap in the literature when it comes to comparing child welfare social worker's perceptions of pregnant women's use of marijuana to pregnant women's use of opiates, and the referral to services and treatment differences.


There is an increasing concern that information systems (IS) are not delivering anticipated value and benefits. There is a push for the development and adoption of improved evaluation metrics in an attempt to better quantify IS benefits. This has led to a growing number of well-developed methods for assessing returns. In this paper we take stock of the current situation and ask whether improvement lies not with the development of better quantitative methods, but rather by better understanding the experiences of multiple IS stakeholders. Using case material and current literature in IS/IT evaluation we draw predominantly upon the work of Heidegger and Suchman to explore the concept of IS evaluation as a highly complex social process. The analysis leads to an understanding of situated (context dependent) IS evaluation which suggests that interpretive evaluation methods may play a key role in helping practitioners and academics understand the complexity surrounding this area.


A retrospective study was conducted in 206 renal carcinomas (RC) that underwent surgery between 1983 and 1992, evaluating those that were diagnosed incidentally. Among this series, 74 cases (35.9%) were incidental renal carcinomas (IRC). The complementary examination that allowed to reach a diagnosis was ultrasound in 58 (78.4%) patients, computerized axial tomography (CT) in 23 (17.6%) and intravenous urography (IVU) in 3 (4%). An evaluation is made of the main prognostic factors (nuclear differentiation grade and pathological stage) and the survival in these patients. The results obtained allow to conclude that IRC display an earlier pathological stage and lower nuclear differentiation grade than the other RC, the difference being statistically significant (p < 0.05). Also, the probability of survival in IRC-diagnosed patients is higher than in those diagnosed with non-incidental RC, the difference being statistically significant (p < 0.05).


DNA sequence analyses of the nuclear ribosomal ITS1 region of the ribosomal DNA and D1-D3 expansion segments of the 28S gene were conducted to characterize the genetic variation of six amphimictic Hoplolaimus species, including H. magnistylus, H. concaudajuvencus, H. galeatus, Hoplolaimus sp. 1, Hoplolaimus sp. 2 and Hoplolaimus sp. 3, and two closely related parthenogenetic species, H. columbus and H. seinhorsti. PCR amplifications of the combined D1-D3 expansion segments and the ITS1 region each yielded one distinct amplicon. In the D1-D3 region, there was no nucleotide sequence variation between populations of H. columbus, H. magnistylus, Hoplolaimus sp. 2 and Hoplolaimus sp. 3, whereas the ITS1 sequences had nucleotide variation among species. We detected conserved ITS1 regions located at the 3' and 5' end of ITS1 and also in the middle of the ITS1 among Hoplolaimus species. These regions were compared with sequences of distantly related Heterodera and Globedera. PCR-RFLP and sequence analysis of ITS1 and 28S PCR products revealed that several haplotypes existed in the same genome of H. columbus, H. magnistylus, H. seinhorsti, H. concaudajuvencus and Hoplolaimus sp. 1. Maximum likelihood and maximum parsimony analysis using the combined ITS1 and D1-D3 expansion segment sequences always produced trees with similar topology; H. columbus and H. seinhorsti grouped in one clade and the other six species (H. galeatus, H. concaudajuvencus, H. magnistylus, Hoplolaimus sp. 1, Hoplolaimus sp. 2, Hoplolaimus sp. 3) grouped in another. Molecular analysis supports morphological schemes for this genus to be divided into two groups based on several phenotypic traits derived from morphological evolution.


The response of a neuron to repeated somatic fluctuating current injections in vitro can elicit a reliable and precisely timed sequence of action potentials. The set of responses obtained across trials can also be interpreted as the response of an ensemble of similar neurons receiving the same input, with the precise spike times representing synchronous volleys that would be effective in driving postsynaptic neurons. To study the reproducibility of the output spike times for different conditions that might occur in vivo, we somatically injected aperiodic current waveforms into cortical neurons in vitro and systematically varied the amplitude and DC offset of the fluctuations. As the amplitude of the fluctuations was increased, reliability increased and the spike times remained stable over a wide range of values. However, at specific values called bifurcation points, large shifts in the spike times were obtained in response to small changes in the stimulus, resulting in multiple spike patterns that were revealed using an unsupervised classification method. Increasing the DC offset, which mimicked an overall increase in network background activity, also revealed bifurcation points and increased the reliability. Furthermore, the spike times shifted earlier with increasing offset. Although the reliability was reduced at bifurcation points, a theoretical analysis showed that the information about the stimulus time course was increased because each of the spike time patterns contained different information about the input.


Abstract. We identify the "hard snowball" bifurcation point at which total sea-ice cover of the oceans is expected by employing the comprehensive coupled climate model CCSM3 (Community Climate System Model version 3) for two realistic Neoproterozoic continental configurations, namely a low-latitude configuration appropriate for the 720 Ma Sturtian glaciation and a higher southern latitude configuration reconstructed for 570 Ma but which has often been employed in the past to study the later 635 Ma Marinoan glaciation. Contrary to previous suggestions, we find that for the same total solar insolation (TSI) and atmospheric CO2 concentration (pCO2), the 570 Ma continental configuration is characterized by colder climate than the 720 Ma continental configuration and enters the hard snowball state more easily on account of the following three factors: the higher effective albedo of the snow-covered land compared to that of sea ice, the more negative net cloud forcing near the ice front in the Northern Hemisphere (NH), and, more importantly, the more efficient sea-ice transport towards the Equator in the NH due to the absence of blockage by continents. Beside the paleogeography, we also find the optical depth of aerosol to have a significant influence on this important bifurcation point. When the high value (recommended by CCSM3 but demonstrated to be a significant overestimate) is employed, the critical values of pCO2, beyond which a hard snowball will be realized, are between 80 and 90 ppmv (sea-ice fraction 55%) and between 140 and 150 ppmv (sea-ice fraction 50%) for the Sturtian and Marinoan continental configurations, respectively. However, if a lower value is employed that enables the model to approximately reproduce the present-day climate, then the critical values of pCO2 become 50–60 ppmv (sea-ice fraction 57%) and 100–110 ppmv (sea-ice fraction 48%) for the two continental configurations, respectively. All of these values are higher than previously obtained for the present-day geography (17–35 ppmv) using the same model, primarily due to the absence of vegetation, which increases the surface albedo, but are much lower than that obtained previously for the Marinoan continental configuration using the ECHAM5/MPI-OM model in its standard configuration (~500 ppmv). However, when the sea-ice albedo in that model was reduced from 0.75 to a more appropriate value of 0.45, the critical pCO2 becomes ~204 ppmv, closer to the values obtained here. Our results are similar to those obtained with the present-day geography (70–100 ppmv) when the most recent version of the NCAR model, CCSM4, was employed.


This article describes a practical machining training aiming that the students acquire the theoretical-practical knowledge of chip formation process. The training takes place after theoretical lessons of machining processes. Thus, this practice allows strengthening the knowledge gained during the lessons. The practical training lasts for five hours, and the student assisted by the teacher analyses the influence of some machining entry parameters (cutting speed, feed rate...) on exit parameters like: (I) cutting forces and power consumption, (II) surface roughness, and (III) chip typology. The practical session is carried out on an experimental set-up (Lathe CNC Danobar 65) equipped with sensors and devices to measure forces (sensor Kistler 9121) and power consumption. In addition, a portable rugosimeter (Hommelwerke) is employed to perform surface roughness measurements. No especial devices are needed for the chip typology analysis. In the case of cutting forces and power consumption, the following input parameters influences are analysed: feed rate, depth of cut and cutting speed. In the case of surface roughness analysis, the following input parameters influences are analysed: feed rate and nose radius of the cutting insert. Finally, regarding chip typology feed rate and depth of cut are examined. The experimental results are compared with model predictions (theoretical calculations) for the three issues studied. The students have to compare both results: theoretical an empirical and they need to explain the reasons when discrepancies appear. Results obtained during the last years demonstrate the student acquires better knowledge of the machining process, and at the same time realises of the process complexity.


GEMISIS is a major project based on partnerships wishing to achieve user-driven exploitation of the information superhighway on a local and regional basis for the benefit of the region's residents and employees. GEMISIS is an acronym for Government, Education, Medical, Industrial and Social Information Superhighway. The paper discusses GEMISIS 2000 which will initially focus on application and service delivery in: education, training and research; business development; community services; healthcare; and crime prevention.


We demonstrate the utility of the bispectrum, the Fourier three-point correlation function, for studying driving scales of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence in the interstellar medium. We calculate the bispectrum by implementing a parallelized Monte Carlo direct measurement method, which we have made publicly available. In previous works, the bispectrum has been used to identify nonlinear scaling correlations and break degeneracies in lower-order statistics like the power spectrum. We find that the bicoherence, a related statistic which measures phase coupling of Fourier modes, identifies turbulence-driving scales using density and column density fields. In particular, it shows that the driving scale is phase-coupled to scales present in the turbulent cascade. We also find that the presence of an ordered magnetic field at large scales enhances phase coupling as compared to a pure hydrodynamic case. We therefore suggest the bispectrum and bicoherence as tools for searching for non-locality for wave interactions in MHD turbulence.


Christian and Muslim relations are under tremendous strain. The political situation makes it very difficult to proclaim the love of God to Muslims. It is, however, possible to reach out to Muslims from the explanation of the love of God. John 3:16 is of utmost importance in this regard. In this article the love of God for the whole world is portrayed and in his love He reaches out to all and not only to Israel. The difficult concept of "Son of God" must, however, be explained to Muslims who often are offended by the concept because of a biological understanding of it. The confession of the Trinity is of importance to fully explain the love of God and must be proclaimed in the dialogue with and the proclamation of the Gospel to Muslims.


Role of endothelium glycocalyx integraty is important for targeted intravenous nanoparticle drug delivery. It plays a vital role in many physical functions in microvessel including protection of the vessel wall with harmful levels of fluid shear. Hence, understanding the impact of the glycocalyx layer is important to develop of human medicine for the treatment of cardiovascular disorders. By experiment it observed that the glycocalyx layer embraces negative charges in the electric-double layer which interacting with plasma phase (treated as an electrolyte) adjoin to the microvessel wall and induces various mechanical and electrochemical phenomena at the interfacial layer. A two fluid model is considered to define the nature of the blood flow. The electrochemical characteristics of the glycocalyx layer are defined by Gouy–Chapman theory. The Navier–Stokes equation related to the blood flow and Poisson equation related to the charge density are solve analytically and represent in the form of Bessel function and hyper-geometric function. The charge effect of glycocalyx layer on the blood flow due to permeability of the wall, conditions at the interface of the clear and peripheral region, boundary condition at the wall mainly slip or no-slip condition and the rheology of blood are discussed and displays through graphs. The behavior of the glycocalyx layer which plays a vital role in the cardiovascular disorders such as atherosclerosis, are discussed under the influence of different parameters. It will give more brief idea on the electrochemical nature and electrokinetic effect of the glycocalyx layer.


The aim of this thesis is to provide an adequate view of moral concepts. The major obstacle that stands in the way of providing such a view is the problem of combining two general features of moral judgments that seem to be constitutive of their meaning, namely objectivity and practical significance. The thesis offers an argument intended to show that these features can be successfully combined, and suggests how they can be combined. Part I explains the main problem that arises in connection with attempts to reconcile the objectivity and practical significance of moral judgments. It also contains a critical discussion of two ethical views that may be proposed as a solution to this problem. The first of these views is ethical naturalism and the second is ethical rationalism, which construes moral concepts in terms of practical rational requirements. It is argued that the former view is incapable of solving the reconciliation problem, while the later seems to be much more promising in this respect. Part II provides an extensive argument in favour of the conceptual cogency of ethical rationalism. In addition, this part of the book offers a derivation of objective standards of correctness applying to our ends, and explains why desires conforming to such standards can serve as good, albeit defeasible, reasons for holding moral beliefs. Part III is devoted to demonstrating that moral judgments, construed in line with the rationalist analysis defended in Part III, can be known to be true (or false). In essence, this demonstration of moral objectivity comes down to two things. First, it is explained what makes it the case that certain objectively determinable rational requirements apply to us as reflective agents. Second, it is explained when we are epistemically justified in judging that a certain particular rational requirement applies to us.


To prepare for nuclear disaster, risk reduction strategies such as the pre-distribution of potassium iodide (KI) pills are essential, along with education on KI pill usage and other emergency preparedness measures. This research study was conducted to explore the existing knowledge on individual preparedness for residents living in a low risk, high impact area of a nuclear power plant. Using a quantitative research methodology, a survey questionnaire was distributed to residents located in the Town of Amherstburg following an announcement to update emergency response plans which would include the future pre-distribution of KI pills. Effective communication and advance notice of the upcoming survey questionnaire elicited a higher than expected response rate among the participants. Although perception of the risk was high, individual knowledge on KI and preparedness for nuclear disaster was largely misunderstood. In conclusion, communication is an important factor in the provision of information in order to increase resilience amongst the public.


The constraining impact of bureaucracy on creative problem solving has been a recurring theme in research on public innovation, and public actors increasingly seek to "steer" innovation through interactive spaces for collaboration and competition. This article examines this form of "meta-governance" in the case of the Swedish Transport Administration and reveals a pattern where the initial opening of arenas for innovation is followed by a countermovement toward organization. Findings suggest that the introduction of elements of organization, such as hierarchy, rules, and membership, in governance spaces is a key strategy for coming to grips with a new innovation promoting role.


Recruitment of Teachers in Universities A Proposal H SRIKANTH In the debate in EPW on the relevance of UGC-NET, the critics (K M Seethi, June 3, A K Bagchi July 29 and Sajid Ibrahim October 7, 2000) have examined how the external actors like the UGC, the central government, the Hindutva forces, etc, have been facilitating the recruitment of not-so-deserving candidates as teachers in the universities. While the points they have raised are not without merit, I feel they have given very little attention to the actual processes that determine the recruitment of teachers in Indian universities. The NET model is no doubt elitist in its approach, but the earlier system of recruitment was no better. There is a need to ensure that our opposition to the anti-people educational policies of the government does not end up as endorsement of all that is polluted and rotten in the university system.


Effects of 2 various levels of AME (according to the manual recommendation and 100 kcal kg(-1) less than it), 2 levels of endo-beta-D-mannanase enzyme (0, 1 g kg(-1)) and 2 levels of xylanase enzyme (0 and 1 g kg(-1)) on serum lipid parameters as a 2(3) factorial arrangement were tested in 120 male broiler chicks fed wheat-soybean meal-based diet. These birds were randomly assigned to 8 experimental groups with 3 pen per group and 5 birds per pen. The serum HDL-cholesterol (HDL), LDL-cholesterol (LDL), Total-cholesterol (TC) and Triglycerides (TG) concentrations were measured at 31 and 41 day of age. The concentrations of serum TG, TC and LDL of 41-day-old birds demonstrated to be lower than those of 31-d-old (p < 0.001). Some hypolipidemic responses were observed in the broiler chicks fed on (1) Diet supplemented with only beta-mannanase, (2) Normal-AME diets supplemented with p-mannanase, (3) Normal-AME diets supplemented with Xylanse and (4) Normal-AME diets supplemented with both beta-mannanase and Xylanase (p < 0.01). In the other hand, some hyperlipidemic responses were detected in the broiler chicks fed on low-AME diets supplemented with xylanse or beta-mannanase enzymes, alone or in combination (p < 0.01). Regardless of AME, adding both xylanse and beta-mannanase to the wheat-soybean meal-based diets have both hyperlipidemic and hypolipidemic effects together (p < 0.01).


Background Hypothyroidism causes considerable morbidity. Low knowledge coupled with inadequate health literacy may lead to poor prevention and management. This study aimed to assess health information-seeking behavior and hypothyroid knowledge among South Indian hypothyroid patients. Methods This cross-sectional study was conducted in October 2013 in Saveetha Medical College, Chennai, India. Hundred clinically diagnosed hypothyroid patients ≥18 years were interviewed in a hospital using a 57-item questionnaire to gather information on their socio-demographics, self-reported disease history, hypothyroid-related knowledge, health information sources, health literacy and health information-seeking behavior. Hypothyroidism was assessed by free T3 and T4 levels. Results Mean age of participants was 38 years (SD=12) with median age of 39.5 years, majority of the participants being females (77%) and living in urban setting (52%). Mean free T3 level was 0.0137ng/dl (SD= 0.003) and mean free T4 was 0.7ng/dl (SD= 0.06). Ninety three percent of the participants received initial hypothyroidism education from their physicians at the time of diagnosis. Half of the participants had incorrect hypothyroidism-related knowledge; similar between both genders. Participants with inadequate health literacy had poor knowledge about the hypothyroidism. Hypothyroidism-related health information was sought almost exclusively from health professionals, predominantly regarding treatment, linked to their faith in qualified medical assistance. Economic status primarily determined healthcare-seeking behavior. Marital status, education level, annual household income and health literacy were significantly associated with knowledge. Conclusion Participants having higher educational qualification, higher annual household income and adequate health literacy had considerable knowledge about hypothyroidism. Developing multi-factorial and tailored health education for patients with marginal or inadequate health literacy is needed. Exploring healthcare institutions as a medium for delivery of such education should be explored.


A prospective, randomized, cross-over study was performed to evaluate the safety and clinical efficacy of an immunoglobulin preparation for intravenous use (Intraglobin F) in comparison with the standard intra-muscular preparation. Twelve patients with idiopathic adult-onset panhypogammaglobulinaemia received intravenous Intraglobin F infusions of 300 mg/kg body weight every 4 weeks, or standard intramuscular injections of 25 mg/kg body weight every week (following a 4-week loading phase of 50 mg/kg/week) in random order for 24 weeks each with a 'washout' period between. At the end of this comparative trial eight of the patients received a further 24 weeks treatment with Intraglobin F at 300 mg/kg body weight every 3 weeks. Patients were assessed by diary cards, interview, laboratory screening (including assessment of serum opsonic capacity), chest and sinus radiographs, and full lung function tests. There were statistically significant, favourable changes in clinical parameters and trough serum IgG levels using the intravenous preparation but no other significant differences with respect to the two preparations. The eight patients who subsequently received the 3-weekly intravenous regimen improved further in these parameters, including serum IgG levels and serum opsonic capacity. Thirty per cent of infusions were associated with mild adverse reactions related to the rate of administration but one patient was withdrawn due to anaphylactoid reaction to her fifth infusion. Ten of the eleven remaining patients elected to continue intravenous therapy at the end of the trial. We conclude that Intraglobin F is preferable to the standard intramuscular preparations for control of idiopathic adult-onset panhypogammaglobulinaemia but that infusion intervals should be tailored to the individual's clinical response and results of appropriate functional in vitro assays, eg. opsonization.


Abstract Background: The most frequently used methods for meas-uring global DNA methylation are based on two different principles: the use of methylation-sensitive restriction endonucleases followed by analysis of the obtained fragments, or the hydrolysis of genomic DNA followed by specific detection and quantification of the 5-methylcytosine content. We aimed to compare two different methods for evaluation of global DNA methylation: the cytosine extension assay after enzymatic digestion of DNA (Cyt-Ext), and a recently described method using liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry after DNA hydrolysis (LC-MS/MS). Methods: Both approaches were applied to evaluate global DNA methylation in leukocyte DNA from 96 healthy subjects. Calf thymus and pBR322 DNAs were used as hyper- and hypo-methylated references, respectively. Results: Using the Cyt-Ext method, the DNA from healthy individuals showed radiolabel incorporation of 11,312± 1600 Dpm/μg DNA, while the LC-MS/MS method showed 4.55±0.1% methylation. Results are shown as mean±SD. The analysis of hypo- and hyper-methylated references showed that both methods are practical for discriminating different levels of methylation. Conclusions: Cyt-Ext and LC-MS/MS are viable methods in evaluating global DNA methylation status. However, the LC-MS/MS assay allows absolute quantification and displays far superior intra-day precision. Therefore, we consider the later approach to be better for use in global DNA methylation studies. Clin Chem Lab Med 2010;48:1793–8.


Drawing on a survey of 500 UK small business owner-managers, the study develops a typology of innovative SMEs. Examined factors include firm size, firm growth, owner-managers' expectation, export behaviour, and their perceived barriers to export in relation to their capabilities including products/services, business plan, knowledge, resources. External barriers include factors such as market competition and government regulations. Our findings show that product innovators are found to encounter more barriers to export, in comparison with process innovators or firms developing a combination of innovations. Product innovators are more likely to suffer from their limited export knowledge, language, and logistics problems, which influence their export behaviour. On the other hand, process innovators perceive the lack of focus on exporting in their business plan as a main constraint to their export behaviour. However, interestingly this firm cluster reported having the highest expectations of firm growth compared to other firm groups. Our results clarify different critical factors determining owner-managers' perceptions and behaviour towards export. Furthermore, the findings provide practitioners with insights into the impact of the firms' business capabilities, their innovation adoption, and export behaviour. The analysis also contributes to deepen policy-makers' knowledge of identifying relevant supporting initiatives for SMEs to boost their export and innovation performance.


The nearly insurmountable adversity that accompanies opioid use disorder (OUD) creates life-altering complications for opioid users. To worsen matters, existing small-molecule drugs continue to inadequately address OUD due to their engagement of the opioid receptor, which can leave the user to deal with side effects and financial hardships from their repeated use. An alternative therapeutic approach utilizes endogenously generated antibodies through active vaccination to reduce the effect of opioids without modulating the opioid receptor. Here, we explore different adjuvants and storage conditions to improve opioid vaccine efficacy and shelf life. Our results revealed that inulin-based formulations (Advax) containing a CpG oligodeoxynucleotide (ODN) acted as effective adjuvants when combined with a heroin conjugate: immunized mice showed excellent recovery from heroin-induced antinociception accompanied by high titer, high opioid affinity serum antibodies similar to the immunopotentiating properties of traditional alum-based adjuvants. Moreover, nonhuman primates vaccinated with a heroin/fentanyl combination vaccine demonstrated potent antibody responses against opioids when formulated with both inulin and alum adjuvants. Finally, storing a freeze-dried opioid vaccine formulation maintained efficacy for up 1 year at room temperature. The results from our studies represent an advance toward a clinically feasible opioid vaccine.


By integrating organic synthesis, secondary organic aerosol synthesis and collection, DFT calculations, and vibrational sum frequency generation spectroscopy, we identify close spectral matches between the surface vibrational spectra of β-caryophyllene-derived secondary organic material and those of β-caryophyllene aldehyde and β-caryophyllonic acid at various interfaces. Combined with the record high surface tension depression described previously for these same oxidation products, we discuss possibilities for an intrinsically chemical origin for cloud activation by terpene-derived surfactants. Although the present study does not unequivocally identify the synthesized and analyzed oxidation products on the β-caryophyllenederived SOM surfaces, these two compounds appear to be the most surface active out of the series, and have also been foci of previous β-caryophyllene field and laboratory studies.An orientation analysis by phase-resolved SFG spectroscopy reveals a "pincer-like" configuration of the β-caryophyllene oxidation products, albeit on a model quartz surface, that somewhat resembles the orientation of inverse double-tailed surfactants at the surfaces biological systems. The structural information suggests that the less polar moiety of a surface-localized oxidation product, such as those studied here, may be the first site-of-contact for a gas-phase molecule approaching an SOA particle containing surface-active β-caryophyllene oxidation products.


A theoretical investigation into several reactions is reported, centred around the chemistry, formation, and reactivity of ruthenium vinylidene complexes. The first reaction discussed involves the formation of a vinylidene ligand through non-innocent ligand-mediated alkyne-vinylidene tautomerization (via the LAPS mechanism), where the coordinated acetate group acts as a proton shuttle allowing rapid formation of vinylidene under mild conditions. The reaction of hydroxy-vinylidene complexes is also studied, where formation of a carbonyl complex and free ethene was shown to involve nucleophilic attack of the vinylidene Cα by an acetate ligand, which then fragments to form the coordinated carbonyl ligand. Several mechanisms are compared for this reaction, such as transesterification, and through allenylidene and cationic intermediates. The CO-LAPS mechanism is also examined, where differing reactivity is observed with the LAPS mechanism upon coordination of a carbonyl ligand to the metal centre. The system is investigated in terms of not only the differing outcomes to the LAPS-type mechanism, but also with respect to observed experimental Markovnikov and anti-Markovnikov selectivity, showing a good agreement with experiment. Finally pyridine-alkenylation to form 2-styrylpyridine through a half-sandwich ruthenium complex is also investigated. The mechanism for this process is elucidated, along with a description of the formation of the unexpected experimental deactivation product. Additionally the chemistry and bonding of pyridylidene complexes is also studied.


Under natural conditions, peatland ecosystems play an important role as a long-term net sink of carbon and nitrogen, storing 445-550 Gt of global carbon. Human activities, such as forestry or peat extraction, are known to affect peatland ecology and hydrology. These practices often lead to drainage, resulting in peat oxidization and enhanced greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) as long as the peatland area remains drained. Currently, the rewetting of drained peatlands is a common practice with the aim of re-establishing near-natural conditions and reducing peatland GHG emissions, especially of CO2 and N2O, which are enhanced under peatland degradation and the aeration of peat.
At the cut-over drained bog, Himmelmoor (Quickborn, Germany), peat extraction started in 1780, and since the 1930s extraction has being occurring at a rate of about 38,000 m3 yr-1. Rewetting started stepwise here in 2004 by blocking drainage ditches with peat as well as creating polders surrounded by peat dams, and currently, more than 56 % of the former extracted central area has been rewetted. In this research project, five study sites in the Himmelmoor with different microtopes, land-use history, vegetation cover, and water table level were examined: a peat extraction area (E), a ditch refilled with peat (D), a peat dam (PD), and areas rewetted in 2004 (RV) and 2009 (R). In order to compare GHG emissions from rewetted and extraction areas, chamber measurements of CO2, CH4, and N2O fluxes were performed in the field over a two year period (2014-2015) in weekly to biweekly intervals. To complement these measurements, peat samples from rewetted and extraction areas were incubated under oxic and anoxic conditions in order to investigate their CO2 and CH4 production potentials.
The results show that all study sites act as GHG sources, although large differences were identified between sites. For example, the total mean greenhouse gas emissions* over the two-year measurement period varied from 4.7 ± 1.8 t CO2-eq. ha-1 yr-1 at the rewetted site (R) to 38.1 ± 6.8 t CO2-eq. ha-1 yr-1 at the peat dam site (PD). However, in the longer term, it was found that the strong warming impact of GHG emissions from the extraction area had been reduced by more than 35 % only five years after rewetting. At all study sites, annual GHG emissions were dominated by CO2, which contributed between 50% and 74% of the mean annual emissions across the various sites. For a 1-hectare area, the annual emissions for rewetted sites were estimated at 123 ± 43 kg CH4, 3.01 ± 1.1 kg N2O, and 2.4 ± 0.8 t CO2; for ditches at 130 ± 16 kg CH4, 7.8 ± 3.3 kg N2O, and 6.6 ± 1.4 t CO2; and for drained bare sites (including peat dams) at 17.7 ± 10.8 kg CH4, 20.6 ± 4.3 kg N2O and 16.0 ± 2.9 t CO2. CO2 and N2O emissions from the dry bare peat dam areas were larger than previously observed for other harvested and drained bare peat sites in Europe. The estimated area-weighted mean annual GHG emission for the former extraction area and for the 74 ha investigation area as a whole amounted to 10.5 and 13.9 t CO2-eq ha-1 yr-1, respectively. Findings from the incubation experiments are in agreement with those from the chamber studies, with the mean CO2 production potential (for the top 1 m soil) of peat from the vegetated rewetted area incubated under anoxic conditions being considerably smaller (2.3 t CO2 ha-1 yr-1) than that observed in incubated peat material from the drained extraction area incubated under oxic conditions (8 t CO2 ha-1 yr-1).
In terms of the success of rewetting practices, soil processes at sites that were rewetted 5- or even 25 years ago remain affected by previous management, and have not been fully restored to natural conditions. This practice was, however, found to have a significant effect on microbial activity and microbial biomass, as indicated by the microbial C and N concentrations in the upper horizons, which were 25-70 % higher in the rewetted bare and vegetated plots than in the drained plots. The findings of this study suggest that the full restoration of soil conditions as well as mire-typical microbial activity after ditch closing and rewetting will take at least decades to occur. The results of this study have been used to provide suggestions to improve restoration practices and enhance ecosystem services, such as reducing the height of dams.


The study reported here examines the English language knowledge and performance of bilingual school children of Middle School age in Britain, in particular their acquisition and use of vocabulary. One of the chief premises of the research is that pupils from bilingual minority ethnic backgrounds suffer a major disadvantage while learning from the National Curriculum because they lack the necessary richness of word knowledge, accompanied by the conceptual frameworks expected in learning subjects such as science and geography. Furthermore, it is believed that by raising awareness among teachers and by the adoption of appropriate methods of vocabulary teaching founded on research, the vocabulary learning of bilingual pupils can be greatly increased. The aim of the study is to identify, describe and evaluate methods of vocabulary instruction currently used and to provide recommendations for suitable methods to be introduced. By means of an action research methodology implemented in a middle school, and with the joint participation of some members of staff and some pupils, classroom data was collected over a two and a half year period from teachers of science, geography and English and their pupils, supplemented with semi-structured interviews with teachers and support staff and conversations with children. These data provided material for a detailed analysis of exactly how individual words develop from first introduction into the pupils' active vocabulary


Background:
 Limited information is available regarding the outcomes after distal middle cerebral artery stroke. To gain a better understanding, the aim of our study was to assess for factors associated with outcome following M2 middle cerebral artery occlusion infarcts.

 Methods:
 We retrospectively reviewed admission computed tomography (CT)-angiography (CTA) of consecutive acute ischemic stroke patients admitted to a single academic center from January 2010 to August 2012. Only patients with isolated M2 occlusion (defined as an occlusion distal to the bifurcation and proximal to further division) were included. We assessed for factors associated with a good 90-day outcome (modified Rankin Scale [mRS] score ≤2). Factors associated with an mRS ≤2 in univariable analyses (p<0.05) were entered into multivariable logistic regression analysis. Admission National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (aNIHSS), age, and infarct volume were also entered as dichotomized variables. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were plotted to determine the optimal aNIHSS score, infarct volume, and age cut points predicting an mRS ≤2. Optimal thresholds were determined by maximizing Youden's index.

 Results:
 90 patients with isolated M2 occlusions were included in final analyses. Of these, 69% had a 90-day mRS ≤2. Age ≤80 years (OR 0.37, 95%-CI 0.003-0.416, p=0.008), aNIHSS ≤10 (OR 0.05, 95%-CI 0.009-0.36, p=0.002), and infarct volume <27 ml (OR 0.009, 95%-CI 0.001-0.15, p=0.001) were independent predictors of a good 90-day outcome. Entering age, aNIHSS, and infarct volume as continuous variables did not meaningfully change these results. Notably, 20% patients (64% of those with a poor outcome) had died by 90-days. We then repeated all analyses for predictors of 90-day mortality. This analysis indicated that age ≤80 years (OR 4.7, 95%-CI 1.25-18, p=0.02) and infarct volume <26 ml (OR 7.3, 95%-CI 1.4-38.5, p<0.001) were independently associated with 90-day mortality.

 Conclusion:
 The majority of patients with isolated M2 occlusion strokes have a good 90-day outcome, which is predicted by younger age, lower aNIHSS, and smaller infarct size. Further investigations are required to identify specific factors predicting death in this patient population.


Which Side Are You On: An Inside History of the Folk Music Revival in America. By Dick Weissman. New York: Continuum, 2005. [296 p. ISBN 0-8264-1698-5. $24.95.] Bibliographical references, index, discography. Dick Weissman is known to many as the author of the Folk Music Sourcebook (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976; reprint, New York: Da Capo, 1989) and the guide, The Music Business: Career Opportunities and Self Defense (New York: Crown Publishers, 1979). His qualifications for writing those books, and indeed for the volume at hand, include his role in the folk-pop group the Journeymen, playing as a sideman on recordings by the Brothers Four, The New Christy Minstrels, and Peter, Paul and Mary, and as a record producer for ABC. With those credentials, one might expect a set of personal recollections telling an inside story of the folk music revival. Weissman, however, chooses a different path, attempting instead to write a history of the American folk music revival by exposing its conflicts, both in business relationships and personal ones. Hence his title comes from the coal miners' labor song, "Which Side Are You On?" Only briefly, at the end of each chapter, does he relate any personal experiences. Weissman adopts several approaches to support this history of conflict in the folk song revival. He identifies underdogs in the movement who have been unjustly ignored, while at the same time downplaying the importance of more iconic figures who he feels "may have received more attention than they deserved" (p. 277). He makes frequent references to the conflicts between the musicians and the music business, especially in matters of copyright, royalties, and the usual bad guys: the artists' agents, the record companies, and publishers. Underlying his narrative seems to be a certain amount of bitterness revealing his own conflicting sentiments about the revival. One underdog figure is "Cowboy" Jack Thorp (whose name erroneously appears as "Tharp"). Thorp's collection, Songs of the Cowboys (Estancia, NM: News Print Shop, 1908) predated John Lomax's Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads (New York: Sturgis and Wallon Co., 1910) by two years. Citing D. K. Wilgus, Weissman justifiably vilifies Lomax for his claim that Thorp had cribbed from Cowboy Songs, rather than the other way around. Here, Weissman takes the opportunity to note Lomax's predatory approach to copyright, both in his claim to the cowboy songs (some of which were actually penned by Thorp), and also in his later claim to the copyright of songs by his "discovery," Huddie Ledbetter (commonly known as Leadbelly). The use of copyright by various folk figures to make money on music that doesn't clearly belong to them is a continuing theme throughout the book. Weissman also raises the cases of Lawrence Gellert, the leftist collector of African American protest songs, and the early recording artist and repertoire man, Ralph Peer. Gellert, a liberal journalist transplanted from New York to Tryon, North Carolina, found himself immersed in African American culture in one of the few Southern towns where such interracial contact was possible. There, he collected several hundred songs, many of which were unusual in their rebellious and angry attitude toward whites. Gellert's early detractors discredited his work on the basis that few printed collections contained similar songs. While Weissman's championing of Gellert is interesting, it is by no means new. He has long been vindicated by the work of D. K. Wilgus ("From the Record Review Editor: Afro-American Tradition," Journal of American Folklore 85, no. 335 [January-March 1972]: 99-107), Richard Reuss's American Folk Music and Left Wing Politics, 1927-1957 (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2000), and Bruce Conforth's M.A. thesis "Laughing just to Keep from Crying: Afro-American Folksong and the Recordings of Lawrence Gellert" (M.A., Indiana University, 1984; forthcoming from University of Illinois Press), among others. …


Illumination estimation from a single image is critical in 3D rendering and it has been investigated extensively in the computer vision and computer graphic research community. On the other hand, existing works estimate illumination by either regressing light parameters or generating illumination maps that are often hard to optimize or tend to produce inaccurate predictions. We propose Earth Mover's Light (EMLight), an illumination estimation framework that leverages a regression network and a neural projector for accurate illumination estimation. We decompose the illumination map into spherical light distribution, light intensity and the ambient term, and define the illumination estimation as a parameter regression task for the three illumination components. Motivated by the Earth Mover's distance, we design a novel spherical mover's loss that guides to regress light distribution parameters accurately by taking advantage of the subtleties of spherical distribution. Under the guidance of the predicted spherical distribution, light intensity and ambient term, the neural projector synthesizes panoramic illumination maps with realistic light frequency. Extensive experiments show that EMLight achieves accurate illumination estimation and the generated relighting in 3D object embedding exhibits superior plausibility and fidelity as compared with state-of-the-art methods.


Summary of paper presented at 5th Contemporary Drug Problems: Rethinking 'change': New theories, new topics, new questions, new methods. Prato, Italy, 2019

This presentation reports on the results of a qualitative
study exploring harmful drug and alcohol consumption and becoming-well
assemblages in a semi-rural place in Victoria, Melbourne. It highlights the
material and environmental forces that have influenced changes in health and
explores how mapping these forces within the counselling space can challenge
old ideas of how change is recognised.


Specific cytotoxicity for catalytic nanomedicine triggered by the tumor microenvironment (TME) has attracted increasing interest. In this work, we prepared AgBiS2 hollow nanospheres with narrow bandgaps via rapid precipitation in a weakly polar solvent, which lowered the intrinsic energy gap for the active production of highly reactive hydroxyl radicals (•OH), especially in the TME. The as-prepared AgBiS2 hollow nanospheres exhibited enhanced optical absorption and high photothermal conversion efficiency (44.2%). In addition, the hollow structured AgBiS2 nanospheres were found to have a peroxidase-mimicking feature to induce cancer cell-specific cytotoxicity while exhibiting negligible cytotoxicity toward normal cells, which might be attributed to the efficient production of highly reactive •OH originating from the overexpression H2O2 in the TME caused by surface catalysis. In particular, the cancer cell-specific cytotoxicity of the nanospheres was greatly enhanced both in vitro and in vivo upon irradiation with a near-infrared (NIR) laser (808 nm). The above-mentioned features of the hollow structured AgBiS2 will make it a promising candidate for tumor therapy.


Blended Learning combines teaching and learning activities in the classroom and online teaching. In its implementation, this learning method requires a lot of data. One of them is the student's online test score data which can be used as an evaluation of learning. For this reason, in this study, data mining is used to determine the results of online student examinations as well as to determine student interest in learning about the implementation of Blended Learning. Data mining techniques are used in the logs of online learning session results, so that one can assess the online learning system used. By assessing the system, it can be identified which students who have studied hard and those who have not studied in the online exam. The series data used are student test score data on the State Polytechnic of Malang Learning Management System (LMS). The student score dataset is arranged based on variables in the Educational Process Mining (EPM) Dataset of UCI, which are obtained from teacher's assignments. In addition, data mining classification is used to determine student interest in learning towards blended learning. In the process of data mining, comparative analysis is carried out using the features of the RapidMiner tool to carry out the process of student data for training and data validation. This process uses several algorithms along with student data which is divided into two sets for training and validation. From the results of data mining calculations produce a classification with minimum errors. From the test, the resulting linear regression algorithm has RMSE 0.000 and SE 0.000, while the neural network algorithm has RMSE 0.525 and SE 0.275.


This paper addresses the development of a new technique in the sleep analysis domain. Sleep is defined as a periodic physiological state during which vigilance is suspended and reactivity to external stimulations diminished. We sleep on average between six and nine hours per night and our sleep is composed of four to six cycles of about 90 min each. Each of these cycles is composed of a succession of several stages of sleep that vary in depth. Analysis of sleep is usually done via polysomnography. This examination consists of recording, among other things, electrical cerebral activity by electroencephalography (EEG), ocular movements by electrooculography (EOG), and chin muscle tone by electromyography (EMG). Recordings are made mostly in a hospital, more specifically in a service for monitoring the pathologies related to sleep. The readings are then interpreted manually by an expert to generate a hypnogram, a curve showing the succession of sleep stages during the night in 30s epochs. The proposed method is based on the follow-up of the thermal signature that makes it possible to classify the activity into three classes: "awakening," "calm sleep," and "restless sleep". The contribution of this non-invasive method is part of the screening of sleep disorders, to be validated by a more complete analysis of the sleep. The measure provided by this new system, based on temperature monitoring (patient and ambient), aims to be integrated into the tele-medicine platform developed within the framework of the Smart-EEG project by the SYEL–SYstemes ELectroniques team. Analysis of the data collected during the first surveys carried out with this method showed a correlation between thermal signature and activity during sleep. The advantage of this method lies in its simplicity and the possibility of carrying out measurements of activity during sleep and without direct contact with the patient at home or hospitals.


Ibogaine is a psychoactive alkaloid contained in the West African plant Tabernanthe iboga. Although preliminary, evidence suggests that ibogaine could be effective in the treatment of certain substance use disorders, specifically opioid use disorder. This narrative review concentrated on the pharmacological, cultural and psychological aspects of ibogaine that contribute to its reputed effectiveness with a specific focus on the ibogaine state of consciousness. Although the exact pharmacological mechanisms for ibogaine are still speculative, the literature highlighted its role as an NMDA antagonist in the effective treatment of substance use disorders. The cultural aspects associated with the use of ibogaine pose questions around the worldview of participants as experienced in the traditional and western contexts, which future research should clarify. From a psychological perspective, the theory that the ibogaine state of consciousness resembles REM sleep is questionable due to evidence that indicated ibogaine supressed REM sleep, and contradictory evidence in relation to learning and memory. The suggested classification of the ibogaine experience as oneirophrenic also seems inadequate as it only describes the first phase of the ibogaine experience. The ibogaine experience does however present characteristics consistent with holotropic states of consciousness, and future research could focus on exploring and potentially classifying the state of consciousness induced by ibogaine as holotropic.


Technologies for the IoT have reached a high level of maturity, and a large-scale deployment will soon be possible. For the IoT to become an economic success, easy access to all kinds of real-world information must be enabled. Assuming that not all services will be available for free, an IoT infrastructure should support access control, accounting, and billing. We analyze available access control and payment schemes for their potential as payment schemes in the IoT. In addition to security and privacy, we discuss suitability for direct client to sensor communication and efficiency. We show shortcomings of existing protocols that need to be addressed by future research.


The extant literature shows that the effects of CEO duality and state shareholder on the sensitivity of management turnover to firm performance are mixed. Using a sample of 1,260 firm-year observations from 226 firms listed in Vietnam from 2009 to 2015, we find supporting evidence for manager turnover mechanism. Interestingly, research results show that the negative relationship between firm performance and CEO turnover is weaker when CEOs simultaneously holds chairman positions. These findings imply that the separation of CEO and chairman positions is necessary to enhance corporate governance.


Achieving and maintaining high employment rates is becoming increasingly important. Governments seek to mobilise new sub-groups of population into employment. However, the Nordic employment rates are already high when compared internationally and historically. The question arises: where should the increase in employment come from? This report uses statistical comparisons to pin-point the main possible sources of employment potential in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. These countries are both similar and different enough in the sense that comparisons can shed new light on the issue. The four countries are compared to the "best pupil in class" in order to point out the possible potential. For instance, Finnish women work much longer hours than women in the three other countries. This indicates that increasing women's working time is a potential source of new employment for them. Employment trends are compared especially in relation to a number of themes. They include working time and part-time employment, unemployment, early exit, very late exit, sickness absence, and disability. Throughout the report, the countries are studied and compared from the perspective of increasing total employment. Some relevant policy indications and the possibilities of mobilising the existing employment potential are also discussed.


THE AMELI PROJECT The goal to turn the EU into the most competitive and dynamic economy by 2010 demands a full benchmarking system to monitor policy performance and their impact on progress. For this reason, the European Commission has engaged in selecting, collecting and analysing a set of indicators that are published each year. The Stockholm European Council has further emphasised the need for effective, timely and reliable statistics and indicators. A main challenge is to develop indicators for the main characteristics and key drivers. An utmost important and challenging area to be measured is social cohesion. Based on a clear definition of social cohesion, a universally-accepted high-quality and robust statistics to adequately measure social cohesion is required. Further, tools for measuring temporal developments and regional breakdowns to sub-populations of relevance will be of great importance. In order to measure social cohesion with Laeken indicators adequately while regarding national characteristics and practical peculiarities from the newly created EU-SILC, an improved methodology will be elaborated within AMELI. This will ensure that future political decision in the area of quality of life can be based on more adequate and high-quality data and a proper understanding of the Laeken indicators by the users. The study will include research on data quality including its measurement, treatment of outliers and nonresponse, small area estimation and the measurement of development over time. A large simulation study based on EU-SILC data will allow a simultaneous elaboration of the methodology focusing on practical issues aiming at support for policy. Due to the fact that the Laeken indicators are based on a highly sophisticated methodology the project's outcome may also serve as a methodological complement for other FP7 projects in the area of indicators.


Importance The risk of osteoporotic fracture with dabigatran use in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) is unknown. Objective To investigate the risk of osteoporotic fracture with dabigatran vs warfarin in patients with NVAF. Design, Setting, and Participants Retrospective cohort study using a population-wide database managed by the Hong Kong Hospital Authority. Patients newly diagnosed with NVAF from 2010 through 2014 and prescribed dabigatran or warfarin were matched by propensity score at a 1:2 ratio with follow-up until July 31, 2016. Exposures Dabigatran or warfarin use during the study period. Main Outcomes and Measures Risk of osteoporotic hip fracture and vertebral fracture was compared between dabigatran and warfarin users using Poisson regression. The corresponding incidence rate ratio (IRR) and absolute risk difference (ARD) with 95% CIs were calculated. Results Among 51 496 patients newly diagnosed with NVAF, 8152 new users of dabigatran (n = 3268) and warfarin (n = 4884) were matched by propensity score (50% women; mean [SD] age, 74 [11] years). Osteoporotic fracture developed in 104 (1.3%) patients during follow-up (32 dabigatran users [1.0%]; 72 warfarin users [1.5%]). Results of Poisson regression analysis showed that dabigatran use was associated with a significantly lower risk of osteoporotic fracture compared with warfarin (0.7 vs 1.1 per 100 person-years; ARD per 100 person-years, −0.68 [95% CI, −0.38 to −0.86]; IRR, 0.38 [95% CI, 0.22 to 0.66]). The association with lower risk was statistically significant in patients with a history of falls, fractures, or both (dabigatran vs warfarin, 1.6 vs 3.6 per 100 person-years; ARD per 100 person-years, −3.15 [95% CI, −2.40 to −3.45]; IRR, 0.12 [95% CI, 0.04 to 0.33]), but not in those without a history (0.6 vs 0.7 per 100 person-years; ARD per 100 person-years, −0.04 [95% CI, 0.67 to −0.39]; IRR, 0.95 [95% CI, 0.45 to 1.96]) (P value for interaction, <.001). Conclusions and Relevance Among adults with NVAF receiving anticoagulation, the use of dabigatran compared with warfarin was associated with a lower risk of osteoporotic fracture. Additional study, perhaps including randomized clinical trials, may be warranted to further understand the relationship between use of dabigatran vs warfarin and risk of fracture.


Finding the boundaries of linguistic variants and studying transitions between variants are key interests in classical linguistic geography. However, the de fi nition of boundaries in areal linguistics is vague, and a quantitative characterization of transitions at the interface between dialectal variants is missing. We conceptualize these transitions as gradients, aiming to quantitatively account for the transition patterns which are traditionally only implicitly inferred from visualizations. Fitting of logistic functions in different spatial scopes (pro fi les as well as surfaces) is proposed as an approach to model the transition at the interface between the dominant usage areas of dialectal variants. Logistic functions can accommodate the breadth of boundary concepts, ranging from sharp isoglosses to transitions with different gradualities. The parametersof the fi tted logistic models aswell as supplementary measures then allow for the quantitative characterization and comparison of transitions across variables. To demonstrate the proposed methodology, we use Swiss German syntactic data on dialectal variables with a single transition zone.


The iron tailings are the main source of solid waste of mining, as well as the potential resource. Regarding the characteristic and scale of iron tailings in China, this paper discusses the current situation and urgency of developing and utilizing of massive mining tailings, and the progresses of related researches on metal recovery, tailings processing and mutual utilization between tailings and mine-out stope. This paper also presents that using the tailing back-fill the mine-out stope currently is the best approach for massive resource utilization, based on sufficient metal elements recovery. This approach addresses the conflict of lands occupation due to the surface waste stacks, and gives the developing orientation of massive tailings resource utilization.


Abstract. Petrocodon anoectochilus F. Wen & B. Pan, a new species of Gesneriaceae from Guangxi and Guizhou in southwestern China, is described and illustrated. Although the leaf morphology of this new species looks similar to that of P. coriaceifolius (Y. G. Wei) Y. G. Wei & Mich. Möller and P. pseudocoriaceifolius Yan Liu & W. B. Xu, this remarkable new species can be easily distinguished from all other species of Petrocodon s.l. (the two above-mentioned species included) by the shape and color of its memorable corolla. Because of its restricted distribution and threatened environment, the current conservation status of this species should be assessed temporarily as "Endangered."


: Jaundice occurs in 50-75% of newborn infants and is noted to occur more frequently and with greater severity in breastfed infants. However, despite years of investigation of this common problem, many aspects of neonatal jaundice in healthy breastfed infants remain unexplained. Knowledge of the types, pattern, and causes of jaundice in healthy breastfed neonates is reviewed, and the potential effect of treatment options is discussed. Practices and interventions used by health care professionals that may decrease the duration of breastfeeding and increase the incidence and severity of jaundice experienced by newborns also are explored.


The causes of Parkinson's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis are still not known, but there is evidence that metal ions can be involved in processes leading to degeneration and atrophy of neurons in the case of these two neurodegenerative disorders. A synchrotron microbeam X-ray fluorescence technique was applied for topographic and quantitative analyses of selected elements on central nervous system tissue. The thin slices of brain were measured on the undulator beamline ID 22 at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France. The polychromatic beam with the dimension of 5 microm x 2 microm (horizontal x vertical) was used in measurements. Tissues of substantia nigra representing Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and the control case were scanned. The results obtained indicated that accumulation of some elements depends on the case that the substantia nigra represents. Some variability in the elemental distribution for a given case was noticed as well. To investigate if present differences in the elemental accumulation between analyzed cases are statistically significant, multivariate methods were used. Cluster and discriminant analyses confirmed the significance of the differences in elemental accumulation in biological structures representing the examined cases. The methods used let us classify these structures in separate groups and determine elements, which play the greatest role in the differentiation of the biological structures for each case.


A very general saddle point nuclear shape may be found as a solution of an integro-differential equation without giving apriori any shape parametrization. By introducing phenomenological shell corrections one obtains minima of deformation energy for binary fission of parent nuclei at a finite (non-zero) mass asymmetry. Results are presented for reflection asymmetric saddle point shapes of thorium and uranium even-mass isotopes with A = 226-238 and A = 230-238 respectively.


Internet of Things (IoT) has provided a promising opportunity to build powerful industrial systems and applications by leveraging the growing ubiquity of radio-frequency identification (RFID), and wireless, mobile, and sensor devices. A wide range of industrial IoT applications have been developed and deployed in recent years. In an effort to understand the development of IoT in industries, this paper reviews the current research of IoT, key enabling technologies, major IoT applications in industries, and identifies research trends and challenges. A main contribution of this review paper is that it summarizes the current state-of-the-art IoT in industries systematically.


Implementation of air traffic safety is shown from good operation and free from activity which against the law. This statement has declared on Government Regulation about Air Traffic Safety in Indonesia. Analysis of Pavement Classification Number (PCN) value is the one of air traffic safety requirement. Due to that statement, this research try to evaluation and analysis about performance of runway based on analytical method and theoritical method using data from HWD (Heavy Weight Deflectometer) test. The result of performance runway will shown on PCN value.HWD tests are routinely conducted at the FAA to evaluate performance of pavemnet. HWD tests are conducted in two phases.In the first phase, HWD geophone sensors record vertical deflections at seven points on thepavement surface. The collected data are used for pavement evaluation and environment related thickness response analysis. In the second phase, the insitu pavement sensors record the pavement response while the HWD geophones record the defections on the pavement surface. These tests are conducted by placing the HWD load plate directly over the in situ deflection and strain sensors. One of the objectives of the HWD tests is to develop relationships between the applied load and measured deflections.The result of this research has shown that PCN value from analytical method is 9/F/A/X/T and theoritical method is 38/F/D/X/T. Code letter A or D on PCN value is describe about class of bearing capacity of subgrade. That difference of code letter bearing capacity due to HWD test directly collecting data of subgrade reaction under the pavement but the other method has taken data of subgrade from sample outside of runway . Increasing of bearing capacity of subgrade cause process of compaction on subgrade under the pavement has perfectly done.


The fabrics made of different color values of Lightness (L), Chromaticity (C) and hue angle (h) of warp and weft silks were designed to testify color mixing. According to Glassman's two-color adding and mixing principle, theoretical values of L0, C0 and h0 for all yarns were calculated. After all yarns were weaved, L1, C1 and h1's value of each fabric were measured by ultrascan PRO of Optoelectronic integration color measurement instrument. The differences between measured and theoretical values expressed by ΔL, ΔC and Δh were calculated. ΔL, ΔC and Δh characteristics were analyzed and the relationship between ΔL, ΔC and Δh and the colors of warp and weft were discussed. The effects of the relative portion of warp and weft silks, the collection and distribution of interweave points, the uniformity of organized points' distribution on color mixing based on the measured and theoretical values of fabric were further investigated.


Splenosis is a rare condition defined as a heterotopic auto-transplantation of splenic tissue, typically after blunt abdominal trauma. It can occur anywhere in the abdominal cavity, or even the chest. Splenosis found in clinical practice is relatively rare because most patients are asymptomatic. We report a rare case of abdominal splenosis in a 7-year-old boy, 3 years after an abdominal blunt trauma.


The July issue included an interesting study1 investigating the contribution of the cingulate cortex in altered pain processing in anorexia nervosa. In particular, the study provides the first direct evidence of structural alterations (i.e., decreased grey matter volume and cortical thickness) in correspondence of the frontoparietal–cingulate network of this clinical population, which relates with their higher mean thermal pain threshold as well as with symptom severity and illness duration. According to these results, the authors conclude by arguing the existence of a common neural origin for thermal thresholds alterations and the clinical characteristics of anorexia nervosa.

The neural and behavioural patterns reported by the authors suggest another, not mutually exclusive, interpretation of this result, which fits with the hypothesis of an altered disgust sensitivity in anorexia nervosa.

First, we know that anorexia nervosa is affected by a consistently high disgust sensitivity.2 We also know that the experience of disgust and pain share common neural patterns of activity in the anterior, mid and posterior cingulate cortex and right parietal operculum.3 There is also evidence of a common autonomic nervous system activity in correspondence of the parasympathetic branch for both the experiences of pain4 and disgust.5 Finally, the recent study by Oaten and colleagues6 demonstrates that the experience of disgust is unique in generating a significant, increasing trend in pain sensitivity.

For all these reasons, the absence of measures for assessing the subjective disgust sensitivity threshold in the anorexia nervosa participants represents an important limitation for interpreting the results reported by Bar and colleagues.1


To the Editor. —Dr Catalona and colleagues, 1 reporting on a prospective study using PSA in detecting prostate cancer, concluded that "[f]ree serum PSA measurements may reduce the number of additional biopsies required by the lower PSA cutoff" in men with PSAs in the range of 2.6 to 4.0 ng/mL. One of us 2 previously analyzed data from a study of Gann et al 3 showing that their PSA stratum of 2.1 to 4.0 ng/mL provided no information to increase or decrease the probability of aggressive prostate cancer because the 95% confidence intervals of the likelihood ratio for this stratum included 1.0. Unfortunately, the study by Catalona et al did not report the usual operating characteristics for screening and diagnostic tests, ie, sensitivity, specificity, likelihood ratios, and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for using the percentage of free PSA. Of the 332 men described, 317 had free PSA measurements, and 72 of these men (23%) had cancer and


The central feature of this research focuses on the sensitive stage of trainee assessment made by the mentor on the third and fourth teaching practice observation at the end of stage one of the full-time pre-service PGCE/Cert Ed Initial Teacher Training programmes, which incorporate the Diploma in Teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector (DTLLS). Wenger's (2003) 'social learning' theory and his notion of community of practice have been used with other concepts as lenses in an analysis of practice. Particular attention is paid to the temporal developmental stages of the trainee in relation to the sequencing of the observations and the effects of the 'positioning' (Burr, 2010: pp. 111 - 14) of mentors. This analysis reviews three cases and specifically explores the mentor's perspective from retrospective reflections encompassing their feelings and decisions, highlighting tensions caused by the need to balance the 'twin roles as enabler and assessor' of their mentee's teaching practice (Claxton et al, 1996: p. 244).


The purpose of this study was to identify the factors of capital structure decisions among firms in Sub-Saharan Africa (hereafter SSA) and to find out whether the fundamental assumptions underpinning the western capital structure theories are also valid in the SSA region. This study therefore examined the capital structure practices of firms in SSA countries by combining responses from a survey of 119 firms in Ghana and secondary data from seven other SSA countries obtained from Datastream. The two data were analysed separately using SPSS, STATA and ORIGIN to provide an in-depth understanding of the situation.

The findings from this study indicate that firms in SSA possess a lower leverage ratio as observed in other less developed market economies. Firm-specific factors such as profitability, earnings volatility, and tangibility have significant impacts on leverage and are also consistent with the predictions of conventional capital structure models, particularly the pecking order and the trade–off models. In spite of the institutional differences that exist between the Western world and SSA firms, the results suggest that some of the firm-level factors that are relevant in explaining capital structure in the western context are also relevant in SSA. Besides, drawing on the institutional differences hypothesis, this study observes that tax is less important in capital structure decisions of firms in SSA. The results also show that firm size, asset tangibility, and rule of law moderate the association between firm-level factors and leverage. Notably, the results show that the weak regulatory environment in SSA facilitates tax evasion by large firms in SSA and that size-tax interaction is negatively related to leverage in SSA.

This study has contributed to knowledge in a number of ways: Firstly, no study has specifically investigated the financing behaviour of firms through a cross-country comparison analysis in SSA. In addition, this study is the first within the SSA to quantify the effects of non-conventional institutional factors and to provide support for incorporating these factors as essential components in the traditional theories of debt-equity choice.


The aerodynamic performance of lifting surfaces operating at low Reynolds number conditions is impaired by laminar separation. In most cases, transition to turbulence occurs in the separated shear layer as a result of a series of strong hydrodynamic instability mechanisms. Although the understanding of these mechanisms has been significantly advanced over the past decades, key questions remain unanswered about the influence of external factors such as free-stream turbulence (FST) and others on transition and separation. The present study is driven by the need for more accurate predictions of separation and transition phenomena in 'real world' applications, where elevated levels of FST can play a significant role (e.g. turbomachinery). Numerical investigations have become an integral part in the effort to enhance our understanding of the intricate interactions between separation and transition. Due to the development of advanced numerical methods and the increase in the performance of supercomputers with parallel architecture, it has become feasible for low Reynolds number application ( $O(10^{5})$ ) to carry out direct numerical simulations (DNS) such that all relevant spatial and temporal scales are resolved without the use of turbulence modelling. Because the employed high-order accurate DNS are characterized by very low levels of background noise, they lend themselves to transition research where the amplification of small disturbances, sometimes even growing from numerical round-off, can be examined in great detail. When comparing results from DNS and experiment, however, it is beneficial, if not necessary, to increase the background disturbance levels in the DNS to levels that are typical for the experiment. For the current work, a numerical model that emulates a realistic free-stream turbulent environment was adapted and implemented into an existing Navier–Stokes code based on a vorticity–velocity formulation. The role FST plays in the transition process was then investigated for a laminar separation bubble forming on a flat plate. FST was shown to cause the formation of the well-known Klebanoff mode that is represented by streamwise-elongated streaks inside the boundary layer. Increasing the FST levels led to accelerated transition, a reduction in bubble size and better agreement with the experiments. Moreover, the stage of linear disturbance growth due to the inviscid shear-layer instability was found to not be 'bypassed'.


Grain refinement in AZ31 magnesium alloy has been attempted by hot-rolling and annealing process. Specimens were solution heat treated at 673 K for 36 ks, then hot-rolled at 423 - 773 K with total reduction of 20 - 80 % by multi pass process. The rolled specimens were annealed at 473 - 673 K for 3.6 ks. Grain sizes after the solution heat treatment were about 20 to 150 µm. After hot-rolling at 573 K and annealing at 473 K, grain sizes decreased into about 5 to 10 µm. Suppression of grain growth by pinning due to precipitates was observed by transmission electron microscopic observations.


For ecosystem modelling of the Boreal forest it is important to include processes associated with low soil temperature during spring‐early summer, as these affect the tree water uptake. The COUP model, a physically based SVAT model, was tested with 2 years of soil and snow physical measurements and sap flow measurements in a 70‐year‐old Scots pine stand in the boreal zone of northern Sweden. During the first year the extent and duration of soil frost was manipulated in the field. The model was successful in reproducing the timing of the soil warming after the snowmelt and frost thaw. A delayed soil warming, into the growing season, severely reduced the transpiration. We demonstrated the potential for considerable overestimation of transpiration by the model if the reduction of the trees' capacity to transpire due to low soil temperatures is not taken into account. We also demonstrated that the accumulated effect of aboveground conditions could be included when simulating the relationship between soil temperature and tree water uptake. This improved the estimated transpiration for the control plot and when soil warming was delayed into the growing season. The study illustrates the need of including antecedent conditions on root growth in the model in order to catch these effects on transpiration. The COUP model is a promising tool for predicting transpiration in high‐latitude stands. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.