DOI:  http://dx.doi.org/10.17227/01234870.38folios95.109 This article reports part of an action research experience that was conducted in an advanced EFL classroom of the language program at a public university in Bogota, Colombia in 2011. The study proposes the incorporation of authentic multicultural literary texts in the EFL classroom as a means to develop intercultural communicative competence (ICC). Data were collected to show how learners acquired cultural knowledge, developed critical intercultural skills, and created positive attitudes -aspects of Byram's model of ICC– when they read literary shortstories. Findings show that integrating language and literature in EFL constitutes a pedagogical contribution to construct critical intercultural awareness.


As the FASB and the Derivatives Implementation Group have revised the implementation requirements for FAS 133, they have forced many vendors to spend enormous amounts of research and development on a moving target. Corporations that have rushed to build spreadsheet solutions are feeling the same "keeping up" burden. But it is only a matter of time before some unlucky company has a P&L or audit mishap due to spreadsheet FAS 133 workaround practices. This is why, as things stand now, vendors see solutions in terms of "the basics," "the extras," and "low-cost delivery."


Background and Purpose Nelonemdaz (Neu2000) has both selective antagonism against 2B subunit of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor and antioxidant activity. This drug provides sufficient evidence of neuroprotection in acute cerebral ischemia/reperfusion models. This phase III trial aims to determine this effect in patients. Design The Rescue on Reperfusion Damage in Cerebral Infarction by Nelonemdaz is a multicenter, double-blinded clinical trial. A total of 496 patients will be randomly assigned into the nelonemdaz (a total of 5,250 mg divided by 10 times for 5 days) and placebo groups. Patients will be included if they have an acute ischemic stroke (National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score ≥8) caused by intracranial large vessel occlusion in the anterior circulation (Alberta Stroke Program Early CT Score ≥4), and if they are expected to undergo endovascular thrombectomy within 12 hours after stroke onset. Endpoints The primary endpoint is a favorable shift in the modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score at 90 days after the first dose of drug. The data will be analyzed by the Cochran–Mantel–Haenszel shift test. The secondary endpoints include functional independence (mRS 0–2) at 35 and 90 days, the favorable shift of mRS at 35 days, the proportion of mRS 0 at 35 and 90 days, and the occurrence rates of symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage within 7 days. Conclusion This trial will clarify the efficacy and safety of nelonemdaz in patients with acute ischemic stroke and endovascular thrombectomy. This study has been registered at ClinicalTrials. gov (NCT05041010).


Small lot sizes in modern manufacturing present new challenges for people doing manual assembly tasks. Assistive systems, including context-aware instruction systems and collaborative robots, can support people to manage the increased flexibility, while also reducing the number of errors. Although there has been much research in this area, these solutions are not yet widespread in companies. This paper aims to give a better understanding of the strengths and limitations of the different technologies with respect to their practical implementation in companies, both to give insight into which technologies can be used in practice and to suggest directions for future research. The paper gives an overview of the state of the art and then describes new technological solutions designed for companies to illustrate the current status and future needs. The information provided demonstrates that, although a lot of technologies are currently being investigated and discussed, many of them are not yet at a level that they can be implemented in practice.


In this study, a molecular docking method and solvation model in computer simulation were applied to simultaneously screen a dummy template and a bifunctional monomer in the rational design of a magnetic molecularly imprinted polymer. According to the results of computer simulation, quercetin as a dummy template and methacrylic acid and 4-vinylpyridine as bifunctional monomers could form hydrogen bonds and π–π interaction in a pre-assembly system, which contributes to the formation of highly selective molecular recognition sites and reduces the influence of the solvent on the system. Magnetic molecularly imprinted polymers of a bifunctional monomer as well as those of a monofunctional monomer were prepared and systematically evaluated via scanning electron microscopy, infrared spectroscopy, and vibrating sample magnetometry as well as adsorption kinetics, adsorption isotherms, and adsorption selectivity experiments. All the results strongly indicated that quercetin was suitable to be used as a dummy template, and the bifunctional monomer polymer showed good selectivity and affinity to the target molecule zearalenone, which can be applied in the extraction and purification of real samples. This novel study provides complete and valuable information on the rational design, preparation, and adsorption properties of a magnetic molecularly imprinted polymer using a dummy template and bi-functional monomers.


Subgrade moisture variation monitoring and control is important due to its influence on road pavement performance and service life. The precise application of non-invasive techniques such as time domain reflectometry (TDR) and ground penetration radar (GPR) in compacted tropical soils depend on calibration models, that consider their mineralogical composition and geotechnical properties. The present work aims to determine calibration models that relate dielectric permittivity with moisture variation in compacted tropical soils. TDR technique was used with low-cost probes and soil calibration columns developed at laboratory for reading dielectric permittivity and define its relationship with moisture. Results showed that through laboratory standardized procedures, it is possible to determine calibration models according to the required accuracy in moisture control in the subgrade. It was found that the high density and magnetic properties of tropical soils significantly influenced the determination of dielectric permittivity and consequently in moisture estimates, hence reaffirming the need of specific calibrations for these types of soils .


D block is a heavy oil reservoir that was first developed in 1997 with the method of Cyclic Steam Stimulation (CSS). After nearly 20 years' development, several technical challenges have shown: the reservoir pressure decreased from 7.4MPa to 2.9MPa, and the Steam Oil Ratio (SOR) increase from 2.86 to 3.56. As a result, the traditional CSS method seems to be uneconomic.
 In view of the problems shown above, CO2 assisted CSS was tested in this oilfield and has shown great success as follow: The steam injection pressure increased from 5.7 MPa to 6.9 MPa and the SOR decreased from 3.45 to 2.86. Besides the underground success, CO2 was separated from the associated gas and then reinjected into the reservoir. This process can reduce the emission of CO2 so that it is both a economic and green method. In addition, according to the field performance, this paper seeks to establish a better understanding of the possible mechanisms involved in the CO2 assisted CSS.


Short personality questionnaires are increasingly used in research and practice, with some scales including as few as two to five items per personality domain. Despite the frequency of their use, these short scales are often criticized on the basis of their reduced internal consistencies and their purported failure to assess the breadth of broad constructs, such as the Big 5 factors of personality. One reason for this might be the use of principles routed in Classical Test Theory during test construction. In this study, Generalizability Theory is used to compare psychometric properties of different scales based on the NEO-PI-R and BFI, two widely-used personality questionnaire families. Applying both Classical Test Theory (CTT) and Generalizability Theory (GT) allowed to identify the inner workings of test shortening. CTT-based analyses indicated that longer is generally better for reliability, while GT allowed differentiation between reliability for relative and absolute decisions, while revealing how different variance sources affect test score reliability estimates. These variance sources differed with scale length, and only GT allowed clear description of these internal consequences, allowing more effective identification of advantages and disadvantages of shorter and longer scales. Most importantly, the findings highlight the potential error proneness of focusing solely on reliability and scale length in test construction. Practical as well as theoretical consequences are discussed.


An animal model was established to test the effect of a calcium antagonist on nephrocalcinosis, which was induced by an atherogenous diet, and its effect on the excretion of calcium and other parameters relevant for stone formation. With the administration of nifedipine (Adalat), the grade of nephrocalcinosis could be significantly reduced. Furthermore, with nifedipine the excretion of calcium and sodium in the urine was raised, while phosphate and potassium levels were lowered. The excretion of magnesium and citrate, reduced by an atherogenous diet, could be raised significantly with the administration of nifedipine. The pathophysiological mechanisms underlying the effect of nifedipine on nephrocalcinosis and on the excretion of the urine parameters are discussed. Apparently hypercalciuria is the result of a reduced reabsorption of calcium in the tubulus. The inhibitory effect on the genesis of nephrocalcinosis is possibly due to the lower calcium influx into the tubular cells.


Abstract Aim: Contextual factors, such as venue characteristics appear to influence gambling behavior. However, few studies have compared the relationship between gambling behavior in alcohol-serving venues (ASVs) and non-alcohol serving venues (NASVs). The aim of the study was to examine individual gambling behavior in ASVs and NASVs. Method: A repeated-measures design was used to examine individual gambling behavior in ASVs and NASVs covering a month. The sample comprised 1452 observations of 726 individuals (25.2% female). A quantile regression model was conducted to examine individual differences in gambling behavior (number of days, sessions, bets made, stake, time spent, money lost, and average bet size) across ASVs and NASVs. Analyses were broken down by gambler category (those that reached legal mandatory spending limits and those that did not) as well as on time frame (overall gambling behavior and average in-session gambling behavior). Results: Individuals gambled regularly in NASVs and occasionally in ASVs. Compared to NASVs, in-session gambling behavior was more variable in ASVs. In-session analysis showed that non-limit reaching gamblers staked less money in ASVs than in NASVs but lost more money in ASVs than in NASVs. Limit reaching gamblers showed no differences in gambling behavior across venues. Conclusions: The findings show that in-session gambling behavior is more variable in ASVs compared to NASVs regardless of gambling category. Non-limit reaching gamblers may be more sensitive to contextual factors than limit reaching gamblers and appear to be more willing to take more risk in ASVs compared to NASVs. The contextual implications are discussed.


The objectives of this study were to compare the commercially available sorbent materials for removing typical indoor volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and to obtain data and experience that are useful to the development of a standard test method for sorbent media evaluation. A multichannel stainless steel air-cleaning technology testing system (ACTTS) was developed and used to test eleven pellet/granular-type sorbent media representing different base materials (coal, bituminous coal, coconut, bamboo wood, and activated aluminas with potassium permanganate and activated carbon) for seven VOCs. Tests were conducted for VOCs including hexane, decane, toluene, tetrachloroethylene, 2-butanone, isobutanol, and D-limonene. Concentrations versus time during sorption and desorption periods were obtained. The sorbent media's performances were evaluated in terms of removal efficiency and removal capacity per unit of sorbent weight as a function of time, the 50% breakthrough time, and the half-life time removal capacity. In addition, repeatability of the test and the effect of flow rate on the test results were also investigated. The challenges ofdeveloping a standard test method and procedure for performance evaluation of pellet/granular-type sorbent media based on the experiences gained from the study are also discussed briefly in this paper.


This paper reports that the U.S. Bureau of Mines has developed a flame-radiation-powered trigger device to explosively activate suppression barriers to quench gas and coal dust explosions. The major component of the device is a silicon solar panel, which concerts radiation from the developing explosion into electrical energy to initiate an electric detonator, which releases an extinguishing agent into the advancing flame front. Solar panels that are rated to produce 20 W of electrical power when exposed to the sunlight are producing about 200 W when exposed to a full-scale dust explosion. The solar panel is electrically isolated from the detonator by a pressure-sensitive switch until the arrival of the precursor pressure pulse, which always precedes a deflagration. This combination of pressure arming and flame-powered photogenerator prevents false barrier activation and requires no external power supply.


In this paper we analyze the evolution of both the level of entrepreneurship and the socio-economic profile of the entrepreneur in the Autonomous Community of Galicia (Spain) in the period 2007-2012, with the aim of observing the effects of the economic recession on the creation of new enterprises. The methodology used consists of analyzing the data provided by GEM Galicia reports developed within the framework of Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM Project) by the observatory of entrepreneurial activity of Galicia, which ensures information on the behavior and profile of the entrepreneur. The results show that the economic recession in which Galicia is immersed caused a significant decline in entrepreneurial activity, entrepreneurship out of necessity increased and since the crisis began the entrepreneurial profile changed two of the socio-demographic variables considered: income level and specific training to undertake which both decreased.


Salvia leriifolia Benth. from Lamiaceae family is a plant native to Iran and Afghanistan with significant applications in medical, pharmaceutical and food industries. The aim of current investigation was to evaluate the composition and antioxidant activity of essential oils (EOs) of S. leriifolia growing naturally in Neyshabur and Bajestan (Northeast of Iran). The aerial parts of the plant were subjected to hydro-distillation and the EOs were analyzed with GC/MS. According to the results, 1,8-cineole (20.24%, 26.39%), α-pinene (15.14%, 14.39%) and β-pinene (24.33%, 26.01%) were the main constituents of the EOs of the plant populations in Bajestan and Neyshabur, respectively. Antioxidant activity of the EOs was measured by three different methods, 2,2 ́-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), thiobarbituric acid reactive species (TBARS) and β-carotene bleaching (BCB). The total EO and three standards (αpinene, β-pinene and 1,8-cineole) displayed a significant antioxidant effect in all assays. Antioxidant activities obtained by means of TBARS and BCB methods were higher than those measured by the DPPH assay. Moreover, BCB was proved to be the most appropriate method for measurement of antioxidant activity. The EOs of the plants grown in Neyshabur showed stronger antioxidant effects in comparison with those grown in Bajestan.


The performance of prolonged (>90 min), continuous, endurance exercise is limited by endogenous carbohydrate (CHO) stores. Accordingly, for many decades, sports nutritionists and exercise physiologists have proposed a number of diet-training strategies that have the potential to increase fatty acid availability and rates of lipid oxidation and thereby attenuate the rate of glycogen utilization during exercise. Because the acute ingestion of exogenous substrates (primarily CHO) during exercise has little effect on the rates of muscle glycogenolysis, recent studies have focused on short-term (<1-2 weeks) diet-training interventions that increase endogenous substrate stores (i.e., muscle glycogen and lipids) and alter patterns of substrate utilization during exercise. One such strategy is "fat adaptation", an intervention in which well-trained endurance athletes consume a high-fat, low-CHO diet for up to 2 weeks while undertaking their normal training and then immediately follow this by CHO restoration (consuming a high-CHO diet and tapering for 1-3 days before a major endurance event). Compared with an isoenergetic CHO diet for the same intervention period, this "dietary periodization" protocol increases the rate of whole-body and muscle fat oxidation while attenuating the rate of muscle glycogenolysis during submaximal exercise. Of note is that these metabolic perturbations favouring the oxidation of fat persist even in the face of restored endogenous CHO stores and increased exogenous CHO availability. Here we review the current knowledge of some of the potential mechanisms by which skeletal muscle sustains high rates of fat oxidation in the face of high exogenous and endogenous CHO availability.


Abstract Determining the sample size in a scientific investigation is important because it gives reliability in the results together with the efficiency in the use of resources and optimization of time. Polyembryony is a characteristic that allows to obtaining clonal and zygotic plants in the same seed. In mango this characteristic is presented, however, there is no information that mentions which is the adequate sample size to evaluate it. The objective of the present work was to determine the optimum sample size by means of the maximum curvature method for future polyembryony studies. Mangoes from the cultivar Manila and Ataulfo were collected from the states of Guerrero and Nayarit, Mexico. In each state, two orchards of each cultivar were chosen, and in each one three trees were selected. In the Fruit Biotechnology laboratory of the Colegio de Postgraduados, Campus Montecillo, five fruit variables were evaluated: weight of fruit, seeds (endocarp and embryos), embryos, weight of the largest embryo and number of embryos. In all the variables evaluated, except for the weight of the largest embryo, the inflection point of the curve was in 6 fruits and an optimal sample size of 8 fruits was determined. The minimum variation coefficients (CV) for fruit weight were from 17.9 to 19.1%, for seed weight 12.7 to 19.3%, embryo weight 12.3 to 17.1% and number of embryos 6.7 to 16.7%. In the case of larger embryo weight, it was determined that 20 fruits are the optimal sample size, obtaining CV from 7 to 22.6%. The fruit and seed weight characteristics were the least variation, and number of embryos with higher CV. The cultivar Manila of Nayarit presented the highest CV in all the variables studied.


Congenital Zika virus (ZIKV) infection impacts fetal development and pregnancy outcomes. We infected a pregnant rhesus macaque with a Puerto Rican ZIKV isolate in the first trimester. The pregnancy was complicated by preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM) and fetal demise 49 days post infection (gestational day 95). Significant pathology at the maternal-fetal interface included acute chorioamnionitis, placental infarcts, and leukocytoclastic vasculitis of the myometrial radial arteries. ZIKV RNA was disseminated throughout the fetus tissues and maternal immune system at necropsy, as assessed by quantitative RT-PCR for viral RNA. Replicating ZIKV was identified in fetal tissues, maternal lymph node, and maternal spleen by fluorescent in situ hybridization for viral replication intermediates. Fetal ocular pathology included a choroidal coloboma, suspected anterior segment dysgenesis, and a dysplastic retina. This is the first report of ocular pathology and prolonged viral replication in both maternal and fetal tissues following congenital ZIKV infection in rhesus macaques. PPROM followed by fetal demise and severe pathology of the visual system have not been described in macaque congenital infection previously; further nonhuman primate studies are needed to determine if an increased risk for PPROM is associated with congenital Zika virus infection. Author summary A ZIKV infection during pregnancy is associated with malformations in fetal development including, but not limited to, ocular and brain anomalies, such as microcephaly, and stillbirth. The development of an accurate pregnancy model to study the effects of ZIKV will provide insight into vertical transmission, ZIKV tissue distribution, and fetal injury and malformations. Non-human primates closely resemble human in terms of the reproductive system, immunity, placentation and pregnancy. Our study demonstrates that the rhesus macaque is a compelling model in which to study ZIKV during pregnancy due to similar outcomes between the human and rhesus macaque. These similarities include prolonged viremia, vertical transmission, adverse pregnancy outcomes and fetal pathology, including defects in the visual system.


Purpose: We examined the relationship between a mutant (T) for wild-type (C) allele substitution of the human kallikrein-2 gene (KLK2), circulating human kallikrein-2 (hK2) levels and prostate cancer risk. Patients and Methods: We studied 1,287 consecutive men who underwent prostate biopsies because of an abnormal prostate-specific antigen level. Serum and DNA were obtained before biopsy. Cases were patients with cancer, and controls were patients with no cancer. The mutant and wild-type alleles of the KLK2 gene were designated as the T and C alleles, respectively. Results: Of the 1,287 men, 616 had cancer, and 671 had no cancer. The overall distribution of the CC, CT, and TT KLK2 genotypes was 55.1%, 38.2%, and 6.8%, respectively. The median hK2 levels for men with the CC, CT, and TT genotypes were 0.24, 0.18, and 0.062 ng/mL and correlated with the genotypes, respectively (P .0001). The adjusted odds ratios for prostate cancer for patients with the TT and CT genotypes compared with patients with the CC genotype, were 2.13 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.3 to 3.5; P .004) and 1.51 (95% CI, 1.2 to 2.0; P .002), respectively. The adjusted odds ratio for prostate cancer for patients in the fourth quartile of hK2 compared with the first quartile was 4.33 (95% CI, 2.9 to 6.4; P .0001). When combined, the adjusted odds ratio for having prostate cancer was 13.92 (95% CI, 6.6 to 29.2; P .0001) for patients with high hK2 levels and at least one T allele. Conclusion: The C/T polymorphism of the KLK2 gene and circulating levels of hK2 are correlated and, in combination, are highly predictive for prostate cancer. J Clin Oncol 21:2312-2319. © 2003 by American Society of Clinical Oncology.


Everyone has heard of the Minotaur in the labyrinth on Crete and many know that the Greek gods would adopt the guise of a bull to seduce mortal women. But what lies behind these legends? The Power of the Bull discusses mankind's enduring obsession with bulls. The bull is an almost universal symbol throughout Indo-European cultures. Bull cults proliferated in the Middle East and in many parts of North Africa, and one cult, Mithraism, was the greatest rival to Christianity in the Roman Empire. The Cults are divergent yet have certain core elements in common. Michael Rice argues that the ancient bulls were the supreme sacrificial animal. An examination of evidence from earliest prehistory onwards reveals the bull to be a symbol of political authority, sexual potency, economic wealth and vast subterranean powers. In some areas representations of the bull have varied little from earliest times, in others it has changed vastly over centuries. This volume provides a well-illustrated and accessible analysis of the exceptionally rich artistic inheritance associated with the bull.


In this talk, we summarize recent developments within a prototype real-time smoke modeling system, the High-Resolution Rapid Refresh for smoke (HRRR-smoke). The HRRR-smoke makes use of WRF-chem (the WRF model coupled with chemistry) to simulate fine particulate matter (smoke) emitted by biomass burning; the HRRR-smoke ingests fire radiative power (FRP) data from the Visibile Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) sensor on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) satellite to calculate biomass burning emissions. The VIIRS FRP data are processed and remapped over the HRRR-smoke model domains. We process the FRP data to calculate biomass burning emissions (smoldering part) and fire size for the model input. In addition, HRRR-smoke uses the FRP data to simulate the injection height for the flaming emissions using concurrently simulated meteorological fields by the model. Currently, there are two 3km grid spacing domains covering the contiguous United States and Alaska. The HRRR-smoke is initialized four times per day to forecast smoke concentrations for the next 36 hours. The VIIRS FRP data mapped onto the HRRR-smoke grids, as well as near-surface and vertically integrated smoke mass concentrations, are visualized for each forecast hour. These plots are provided to the public via the HRRR-smoke webpage: https://rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrr/HRRRsmoke/ Building on data assimilation and model physics advancements within the 3km grid spacing HRRR model, the HRRR-smoke represents an initial step towards incorporating aerosol feedbacks onto meteorology within operational numerical weather prediction.


Although critical to the lifetime of LED, the junction temperature of LED cannot be measured easily. Based on the general photoelectrothermal theory for LED systems, the coefficient for the reduction of luminous efficacy with junction temperature is first related to the characteristic temperature of the LED. Then, a noncontact method for estimating the internal junction temperature Tj and junction-case thermal resistance Rjc of LED from the external power and luminous flux measurements is presented and verified practically. Since these external measurements can be obtained easily, the proposal provides a simple tool for checking Tj in new LED system designs without using expensive or sophisticated thermal monitoring equipment for the LED junctions. The proposed method has been checked with measurements on LED devices from three different brands with both constant and nonconstant Rjc . The theoretical predictions are found to be highly consistent with practical measurements.


A variety of crop revenue insurance programs is now available. These programs require measurement of price risk. This article investigates the appropriateness of distributional assumptions underlying current and proposed alternative actuarial methods. Our results find that prices are best modeled using a flexible mixture of normals distribution.


Trade policy initiatives of developed country governments are in flux. Governments' need for new trade policy measures has arisen partly because of constraints imposed on the use of export subsidies by the Agreement on Agriculture reached as part of the Uruguay Round of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1994. Further disciplines on export subsidies and other policy measures may be agreed on in the Doha Round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations, accentuating the need for new policy measures. While the Doha Round may not successfully reach an agreement, the current modalities show provisional agreement on the elimination of multiple forms of export subsidies. There is provisional agreement on more stringent restrictions on the use of export credit programs. Controls on exporting state trading agencies' ability to subsidize exports are tentatively agreed (Furtan, 2005). Food aid, which can also be used to circumvent disciplines on export subsidies, is also likely to be subject to WTO disciplines.


From India to Iraq, from London to Lahore, the relationship between religion and violence is one of the most bitterly contested and casually misrepresented issues of our times. This groundbreaking volume brings together expert perspectives from a variety of fields to probe it. It seeks to shift analytical focus on to the contexts in which violence is expressed, enacted and reported. Ranging from Islam to Buddhism to new religious movements in the West, Dying for Faith offers a comprehensive and highly original account of a complex phenomenon that has so far attracted sensational media coverage but scant academic attention.


Multidomain environments where multiple organizations interoperate with each other are becoming a reality as can be seen in emerging Internet-based enterprise applications. Access control to ensure secure interoperation in such an environment is a crucial challenge. A multidomain environment can be categorized as tightly-coupled and loosely-coupled. The access control challenges in the loosely-coupled environment have not been studied adequately in the literature. In a loosely-coupled environment, different domains do not know each other before they interoperate. Therefore, traditional approaches based on users' identities cannot be applied directly. Motivated by this, researchers have developed several attribute-based authorization approaches to dynamically build trust between previously unknown domains. However, these approaches all focus on building trust between individual requesting users and the resource providing domain. We demonstrate that such approaches are inefficient when the requests are issued by a set of users assigned to a functional role in the organization. Moreover, preserving principle of security has long been recognized as a challenging problem when facilitating interoperations. Existing research work has mainly focused on solving this problem only in a tightly-coupled environment where a global policy is used to preserve the principle of security. In this thesis, we propose a role-based access control and trust management framework for loosely-coupled environments. In particular, we allow the users to specify the interoperation requests in terms of requested permissions and propose several role mapping algorithms to map the requested permissions into roles in the resource providing domain. Then, we propose a Simplify algorithm to simplify the distributed proof procedures when a set of requests are issued according to the functions of some roles in the requesting domain. Our experiments show that our Simplify algorithm significantly simplifies such procedures when the total number of credentials in the environment is sufficiently large, which is quite common in practical applications. Finally, we propose a novel policy integration approach using the special semantics of hybrid role hierarchy to preserve the principle of security. At the end of this dissertation a brief discussion of implemented prototype of our framework is present.


Although accurate estimates of biomass loss during peat fires, and recovery over time, are critical in understanding net peat ecosystem carbon balance, empirical data to inform carbon models are scarce. During the 2019 dry season, fires burned through 133,631 ha of degraded peatlands of Central Kalimantan. This study reports carbon loss from surface fuels and the top peat layer of 18.5 Mg C ha−1 (3.5 from surface fuels and 15.0 from root/peat layer), releasing an average of 2.5 Gg (range 1.8–3.1 Gg) carbon in these fires. Peat surface change measurements over one month, as the fires continued to smolder, indicated that about 20 cm of the surface was lost to combustion of peat and fern rhizomes, roots and recently incorporated organic residues that we sampled as the top peat layer. Time series analysis of live green vegetation (NDVI trend), combined with field observations of vegetation recovery two years after the fires, indicated that vegetation recovery equivalent to fire-released carbon is likely to occur around 3 years after fires.


Forensic DNA phenotyping (FDP) is an emerging technology that seeks to make probabilistic inferences regarding a person's observable characteristics ("phenotype") from DNA. The aim is to aid criminal investigations by helping to identify unknown suspected perpetrators, or to help with non-criminal missing persons cases. Here we provide results from the analysis of 36 interviews with those who have a professional stake in FDP, including forensic scientists, police officers, lawyers, government agencies and social scientists. Located in eight EU countries, these individuals were asked for their views on the benefits and problems associated with the prospective use of FDP. While all interviewees distinguished between those phenotypic tests perceived to either raise ethical, social or political concerns from those tests viewed as less ethically and socially problematic, there was wide variation regarding the criteria they used to make this distinction. We discuss the implications of this in terms of responsible technology development.


This report presents the findings of the independent audit of the Lyons Ferry Hatchery (Spring Chinook). Lyons Ferry Hatchery is located downstream of the confluence of the Palouse and Snake rivers, about 7 miles west of Starbuck, Washington. The hatchery is used for adult collection of fall chinook and summer steelhead, egg incubation of fall chinook, spring chinook, steelhead. and rainbow trout and rearing of fall chinook, spring chinook, summer steelhead, and rainbow trout. The audit was conducted in April 1996 as part of a two-year effort that will include 67 hatcheries and satellite facilities located on the Columbia and Snake River system in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. The hatchery operating agencies include the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, Idaho Department of Fish and Game, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.


This study presents practical implications for particle separation in Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF). The objectives were to localise where particles are separated from the water phase and to determine what particles, in terms of size, are removed by the DAF-process. Both pilotand full-scale plants were investigated. Particle sizes were analysed with a light-blocking particle counter and an optical borescope was used for visualisation of particle-bubble aggregates. It was found that particles are preferably separated upstream in the process, i.e. close to the contact zone. Furthermore, separation efficiency for particles increased with increasing particle size.


Abstract A new methodology has been developed recently to treat resonance self-shielding in systems for which the fuel compact region of a reactor lattice consists of small fuel grains dispersed in a graphite matrix. The theoretical development adopts equivalence theory in both micro- and macro-level heterogeneities to provide approximate analytical expressions for the shielded cross sections, which may be interpolated from a table of resonance integrals or Bondarenko factors using a modified background cross section as the interpolation parameter. This paper describes the first implementation of the theoretical equations in a reactor analysis code. To reduce discrepancies caused by use of the rational approximation for collision probabilities in the original derivation, a new formulation for a doubly heterogeneous Bell factor is developed in this paper to improve the accuracy of doubly heterogeneous expressions. The methodology is applied to a wide range of pin cell and assembly test problems with varying geometry parameters, material compositions, and temperatures, and the results are compared with continuous-energy Monte Carlo simulations to establish the accuracy and range of applicability of the new approach. It is shown that the new doubly heterogeneous self-shielding method including the Bell factor correction gives good agreement with reference Monte Carlo results.


This book explores how the wild beast of finance can be better understood and controlled. Using the framework of exchange and regulation, European capital markets are analyzed and it is shown that a common European area of financial exchange has developed. Concerning financial regulation, one can see that the EU has become the most dominant rule setter and the regulation established can be interpreted as being of a statutory kind. Showing the shortcomings of this process, the set-up of a more transparent mega-regulator to control all financial market segments and financial agents is proposed.


ABSTRACT The success of Cloud Computing and the resulting ever growing of large data centers is causing a huge rise in electrical power consumption by hardware facilities and cooling systems. This results in an increment of operational costs of data centres, that is becoming a crucial issue to deal with. Consolidation of virtual machines (VM) is one of the key strategies used to reduce the power consumption of Cloud servers. For this reason, it is extensively studied. Consolidation has the goal of allocating virtual machines on a few physical servers as possible while satisfying the Service Level Agreement established with users. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of a consolidation strategy strongly depends on the forecast of the VM resource needs. Predictive data mining models can be exploited for this purpose. This paper describes the design and development of a system for energy-aware allocation of virtual machines, driven by predictive data mining models. In particular, migrations are driven by the forecast of the future computational needs (CPU, RAM) of each virtual machine, in order to efficiently allocate those on the available servers. The experimental evaluation, performed on real-world Cloud data traces, reports a comparison of performance achieved by exploiting several classification models and shows good benefits in terms of energy saving. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT The energy-aware cloud architecture.


Creating large amounts of annotated data to train statistical PCFG parsers is expensive, and the performance of such parsers declines when training and test data are taken from different domains. In this paper we use selftraining in order to improve the quality of a parser and to adapt it to a different domain, using only small amounts of manually annotated seed data. We report significant improvement both when the seed and test data are in the same domain and in the outof-domain adaptation scenario. In particular, we achieve 50% reduction in annotation cost for the in-domain case, yielding an improvement of 66% over previous work, and a 20-33% reduction for the domain adaptation case. This is the first time that self-training with small labeled datasets is applied successfully to these tasks. We were also able to formulate a characterization of when selftraining is valuable.


OBJECTIVE
The World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) reported that understanding the use and impact of smokeless tobacco (SLT) products is complicated by product diversity. Many different SLT products with different characteristics are used worldwide. ZERO STYLE STIX(TM) (sold by Japan Tobacco Inc.) is a brand of snuff, a type of smokeless tobacco. Our objective was to determine the constituents of the gas from SLT and analyze the ingredients in tobacco fillers.

METHODS
ZERO STYLE STIX smokeless tobacco was released in the Japanese market in 2010. Nicotine, menthol, and tobacco-specific nitrosamines in the smokeless tobacco fillers were determined by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS). The gaseous compounds were collected by a smoking machine using two smoking protocols, i.e., the ISO and Health Canada Intense methods. Nicotine and menthol in the gas were determined by GC/MS.

RESULTS
Nicotine, menthol, and the total tobacco-specific nitrosamines were detected in the tobacco fillers. The level of menthol in the snuff was more than ten times that of nicotine. The determined levels of the two components of the gas from the snuff were higher when using the Health Canada Intense protocol than when using the ISO protocol. In addition, flavors other than menthol were emitted from the smokeless tobacco.

CONCLUSION
The new type of snuff introduced in the Japanese market in 2010 contained added flavors, and was attractive smokeless tobacco. Flavors in tobacco products need to regulate on the basis of FCTC 9 and 10 in JAPAN.


We present a method for localizing facial keypoints on animals by transferring knowledge gained from human faces. Instead of directly finetuning a network trained to detect keypoints on human faces to animal faces (which is sub-optimal since human and animal faces can look quite different), we propose to first adapt the animal images to the pre-trained human detection network by correcting for the differences in animal and human face shape. We first find the nearest human neighbors for each animal image using an unsupervised shape matching method. We use these matches to train a thin plate spline warping network to warp each animal face to look more human-like. The warping network is then jointly finetuned with a pre-trained human facial keypoint detection network using an animal dataset. We demonstrate state-of-the-art results on both horse and sheep facial keypoint detection, and significant improvement over simple finetuning, especially when training data is scarce. Additionally, we present a new dataset with 3717 images with horse face and facial keypoint annotations.


This article argues that American policy towards Iraq went through four major shifts between the invasion in 2003 and the announcement of the surge in 2007. The best way to understand the Bush administration's evolving policy towards Iraq is by examining the ideological parameters within which it was made. The article assesses various approaches to understanding the relationship between ideology, policy making and foreign policy, concluding that ideology shapes the paradigm and analytical categories within which foreign policy is made. A major change in foreign policy originates either from the decision-maker consciously recognizing and attempting to rework the ideational parameters within which policy is made or in reaction to 'discrepant information' or 'anomalies' that destabilize the paradigm and its analytical categories. The article goes on to examine the extent to which both neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism shaped George W. Bush's foreign policy. It identifies a series of major analytical categories that originate from within these two doctrines and shaped policy towards Iraq. The article argues that the four major shifts in Bush's policy towards Iraq were forced upon the administration by the rising tide of politically motivated violence. Ultimately this violence forced Bush to abandon the major analytical categories that, up to 2007, had given his policy coherence. In order to extricate his administration from the quagmire that Iraq had become by 2006, Bush totally transformed his approach, dropping the previously dominant neo-liberal paradigm and adopting a counter-insurgency doctrine.


To the Editor.— In their article in the April 1991 issue of theArchives, Angeli et al 1 compared the efficacy of sublingual captopril and nifedipine in immediate treatment of hypertensive emergencies. The authors imply that the sublingual route is the optimal means of orally administering nifedipine in hypertensive emergencies. However, a few studies have shown that nifedipine is poorly absorbed through the oral mucosa, 2 and, thus, the efficacy of sublingual nifedipine may be attributed to its ultimate gastric absorption. The bite-and-swallow method is the most efficacious route of administering nifedipine orally. The authors also state that there is general medical consensus that prompt control of blood pressure is required in hypertensive emergencies. The fact is that while sublingual nifedipine produces a rapid fall in blood pressure within 5 to 10 minutes, 3 it can also cause symptomatic hypotension in the acute treatment of severe hypertension. 4 Cerebral infarction


Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), and other negative emissions technologies (NETs), are integral to all scenarios consistent with meeting global climate ambitions. BECCS's ability to promptly remove CO2 from the atmosphere in a resource efficient manner, whilst being a net energy generator to the global economy, remains controversial. Given the large range of potential outcomes, it is crucial to understand how, if at all, this technology can be deployed in a way which minimises its impact on natural resources and ecosystems, while maximising both carbon removal and power generation. In this study, we present a series of thought experiments, using the Modelling and Optimisation of Negative Emissions Technologies (MONET) framework, to provide insight into the combinations of biomass feedstock, origin, land type, and transport route, to meet a given CO2 removal target. The optimal structure of an international BECCS supply chain was found to vary both quantitatively and qualitatively as the focus shifted from conserving water, land or biomass, to maximising energy generated, with the water use in particular increasing threefold in the land and biomass use minimisation scenario, as compared to the water minimisation scenario. In meeting regional targets, imported biomass was consistently chosen over indigenous biomass in the land and water minimisation scenarios, confirming the dominance of factors such as yield, electricity grid carbon intensity, and precipitation, over transport distance. A pareto-front analysis was performed and, in addition to highlighting the strong trade-offs between BECCS resource efficiency objectives, indicated the potential for tipping points. An analysis of the sensitivity to the availability of marginal land and agricultural residues showed that (1) the availability of agricultural residues had a great impact on BECCS land, and that (2) water use and land use change, two critical sustainability indicators for BECCS, were negatively correlated. Finally, we showed that maximising energy production increased water use and land use fivefold, and land use change by two orders of magnitude. It is therefore likely that an exclusive focus on energy generation and CO2 removal can result in negative consequences for the broader environment. In spite of these strong trade-offs however, it was found that BECCS could meet its electricity production objective without compromising estimated safe land use boundaries. Provided that the right choices are made along BECCS value chain, BECCS can be deployed in a way that both satisfies its resource efficiency and technical performance objectives.


This paper tests some theoretical claims about the gendered experience of time against a case-study of community based midwives in the NHS. Its starting-point is four linked claims: that, because they play different social roles, women and men generally relate to time in different ways; that in contemporary society 'men's time' (linear, quantitative, commodified, abstract, clock time) is generally prioritised over 'women's time' (cyclical, qualitative, relational, natural, process, task-oriented time); that recent market-driven public sector reforms have increased the marginalisation of 'women's time'; and that this is having detrimental social effects.

These claims lead to two key expectations: that midwives experience a particularly clear clash between hegemonic 'men's time' and the time needs of women, and that the 'time is money' rationality of recent public sector reforms has increased temporal pressures on them. The case study confirms the first expectation. However, it finds that recent policy developments are having mixed effects, with some women-friendly changes at the level of rhetoric countered by the detrimental effects of recent NHS reforms that consolidate the inappropriate hegemony of clock time.


Liquid metal anode (LMA) solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) are a promising type of high temperature fuel cell suitable for the direct oxidation of gaseous or solid fuel. Depending upon the operating conditions they can be run in four different modes. In this first of a series of studies concerning the mechanism of reaction and species transport in LMA SOFCs, the oxidation of hydrogen fuel in a liquid tin anode has been investigated. An electrochemical model is developed based upon fast dissolution of hydrogen in a molten tin anode, slow, rate-determining homogeneous reaction of hydrogen with oxygen dissolved in the liquid tin, followed by anodic oxygen injection under diffusion control to replace the oxygen removed by reaction (so-called Chemical - Electrochemical mode or CE mode). Experimentally-generated data are used to validate the model. The model has introduced a new key parameter, z¯, which takes a value between zero and unity; its value is determined by geometric and convective factors in the cell as well as the partial pressure of the supplied hydrogen fuel. Current output of the cell is proportional to the value of z¯.


We introduce an algorithm based on semidefinite programming that yields increasing (resp. decreasing) sequences of lower (resp. upper) bounds on polynomial stationary averages of diffusions with polynomial drift vector and diffusion coefficients. The bounds are obtained by optimising an objective, determined by the stationary average of interest, over the set of real vectors defined by certain linear equalities and semidefinite inequalities which are satisfied by the moments of any stationary measure of the diffusion. We exemplify the use of the approach through several applications: a Bayesian inference problem; the computation of Lyapunov exponents of linear ordinary differential equations perturbed by multiplicative white noise; and a reliability problem from structural mechanics. Additionally, we prove that the bounds converge to the infimum and supremum of the set of stationary averages for certain SDEs associated with the computation of the Lyapunov exponents, and we provide numerical evidence of convergence in more general settings.


Coefficient quantization has peculiar qualitative effects on representations of vectors in IR with respect to overcomplete sets of vectors. These effects are investigated in two settings: frame expansions (representations obtained by forming inner products with each element of the set) and matching pursuit expansions (approximations obtained by greedily forming linear combinations). In both cases, based on the concept of consistency, it is shown that traditional linear reconstruction methods are suboptimal, and better consistent reconstruction algorithms are given. The proposed consistent reconstruction algorithms were in each case implemented, and experimental results are included. For frame expansions, results are proven to bound distortion as a function of frame redundancy r and quantization step size for linear, consistent, and optimal reconstruction methods. Taken together, these suggest that optimal reconstruction methods will yield O(1/r/sup 2/) mean-squared error (MSE), and that consistency is sufficient to insure this asymptotic behavior. A result on the asymptotic tightness of random frames is also proven. Applicability of quantized matching pursuit to lossy vector compression is explored. Experiments demonstrate the likelihood that a linear reconstruction is inconsistent, the MSE reduction obtained with a nonlinear (consistent) reconstruction algorithm, and generally competitive performance at low bit rates.


: Green procurement is a holistic approach that encompasses organization, people, processes and technology. Some companies realized a long time efficiency in energy usage, waste management and energy consumption along with use of recycled materials resulted in reducing costs. Green procurement practice is about the process of purchasing goods and services that takes into account the socio-economic and environmental impact that such purchasing has on people and communities. The general objective of this study is to establish the effects of green procurement practices on operational efficiency at Kenya airways Limited. The study was guided by three objectives; to establish to which extent procurement of recyclable goods impacts on operational efficiency, to establish how low energy consuming goods affects operational efficiency and to what degree does procurement of environmentally preferred goods influence operational efficiency? The study adopted a descriptive research design. The target population of this study comprised of fifty employees in the finance department of Kenya Airways. The researcher used structured questionnaire to collect primary data for making conclusions and recommendations. Data  was  analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 22.0).The study found out that Kenya Airways procures product that are specifically designed making a product more environmentally compatible and that materials at Kenya airways are sourced from credible suppliers that provide quality goods, thorough procurement selection is done to ensure supply goods supplied can be recycled, incorporating the concept of green in the design process, the power consumption can be reduced to greater extent through low production cost and that there is strong relationship building between suppliers and the company thus production efficiency and that Kenya Airways engages in the green procurement practices so as to give their customers environmentally friendly products by green packaging practices waste prevention and energy saving on low energy consuming goods. The study concludes that Kenya Airways procures product that are specifically design making a product more environmentally compatible and that materials are sourced from credible suppliers that provide quality goods and  Green manufacturing enhance environmental consciousness through Reuse, Recycle, and Refurbish activities and a solution for environmentally concerned and economically conservative thus leading to lower  raw material cost, increase the production efficiency and reduces the environmental and occupational safety expenses. The study recommends that Kenya Airways could carry out environmental audits on a regular basis so as to determine the effectiveness of the operations undertaken on green procurement practices, Kenya Airway should come up with programs that will create awareness on the green operations practices adopted by the employees and other stakeholders and that the organization need to explore the usage of best value procurement methods other than relying heavily on price-based procurement methods.


Cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) are important immune effectors against intra-cellular pathogens. These cells search for infected cells and kill them. Recently developed experimental methods in combination with mathematical models allow for the quantification of the efficacy of CTL killing in vivo and, hence, for the estimation of parameters that characterize the effect of CTL killing on the target cell populations. It is not known how these population-level parameters relate to single-cell properties. To address this question, we developed a three-dimensional cellular automaton model of the region of the spleen where CTL killing takes place. The cellular automaton model describes the movement of different cell populations and their interactions. Cell movement patterns in our cellular automaton model agree with observations from two-photon microscopy. We find that, despite the strong spatial nature of the kinetics in our cellular automaton model, the killing of target cells by CTLs can be described by a term which is linear in the target cell frequency and saturates with respect to the CTL levels. Further, we find that the parameters describing CTL killing on the population level are most strongly impacted by the time a CTL needs to kill a target cell. This suggests that the killing of target cells, rather than their localization, is the limiting step in CTL killing dynamics given reasonable frequencies of CTL. Our analysis identifies additional experimental directions which are of particular importance to interpret estimates of killing rates and could advance our quantitative understanding of CTL killing.


Along with the development of mobile communication systems, it is important to integrate massive heterogeneous data and provide flexible and seamless services. Based on related work, we proposed a novel mobile data management architecture model combined with ontology, service and agent. We discussed the architecture of this model, analyzed the key technologies, and pointed out the existent issues. At last we made a conclusion and put forward future work. The model MDMMBSO can provide mobile data service effectively, integrate heterogeneous distributed data, manage mobile data and provide business interface in a unified form. Furthermore, it can be reasonable and feasible to provide a seamless mobile data management.


Abstract The Lower Carboniferous Fort Payne and Ullin Formations in the Illinois Basin form the transgressive and highstand systems tracts that were deposited in a carbonate ramp setting. During deposition of the Ullin Limestone, biotic communities dominated by fenestrate bryozoans and echinoderms (primarily crinoids) proliferated, possibly in response to global tectonic, biological, and oceanographic events that affected bathymetry and nutrient supply. The Fort Payne Formation consists of a dark grey-brown, siliceous and argillaceous lime mudstone in the lower part (transgressive systems tract) and a very fine-grained wackestone to packstone with rare mud mounds in the upper part (early highstand), and was deposited in an outer ramp to basinal environment. During deposition of the lower Ullin Limestone (mostly early highstand), bryozoan-crinoidal build-ups accreted both laterally and vertically into several relatively large carbonate banks, which were partly surrounded by siliceous Fort Payne sea. Bryozoans (primarily fenestrates) were especially prevalent during the late stage of bank development and formed mud-free bioherms up to 120 m thick. In places, carbonate mud mounds also formed during the early stage of bank deposition. Bioherm development declined during deposition of the upper Ullin Limestone (late highstand), and a broad, storm-dominated carbonate ramp was established that became the site for widespread deposition of bryozoan-crinoidal sandwaves. Gradual shallowing led to ooid formation at the end of Ullin deposition. This sequence was terminated by a relative rise in sea level that resulted in deposition of the transgressive facies of the lower part of the overlying Salem Limestone. The depositional style and the nature of skeletal material of the Fort Payne and Ullin Formations are similar to those of cool-water carbonates. A deep-water setting along with upwelling of cool, nutrient-rich oceanic waters may have been responsible for the proliferation of bryozoans and crinoids at this time. The deep-water setting and abundant nutrient supply also may have restricted the formation of ooids and proliferation of shallow-water calcareous organisms.


The objective of this work was to determine the ideal number for field release of Trichogramma galloi and T. pretiosum for controlling Duponchelia fovealis (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) in strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa). The experiment was carried out in a greenhouse, where the strawberry cultivar 'Oso Grande' was infected with 100 eggs of D. fovealis distributed on the leaf surface area of each plant. A total of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, and 128 female parasitoids were released per egg of D. fovealis. The greatest level of egg parasitism, with no differences for the species of Trichogramma, was observed at the densities of four and eight parasitoids per egg of D. fovealis, considered ideal for field release.


Polycrystalline CrN thin films were irradiated with Xe ions. The irradiation-induced modifications on structural and optical properties of the films were investigated. The CrN films were deposited on Si(100) wafers with the thickness of 280 nm, by using DC reactive sputtering. After deposition, the films were implanted at room temperature with 400 keV Xe ions with the fluences of 5–20×10 ions/cm. The films were then annealed at 700 °C in vacuum for 2 h. The combination of Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was used for structural analyses, while changes in optical properties were monitored by spectroscopic ellipsometry. We also measured the electrical resistivity of the samples using a four point probe method. RBS analysis reveals that the concentration of Xe in the layers increases with ion fluence reaching the value of around 1.5 at.% for the highest ion dose, at a depth of 73 nm. XRD patterns show that the irradiation results in the decrease of the lattice constant in the range of 0.4160–0.4124 nm. Irradiation also results in the splitting of 200 line indicating the tetragonal distortion of CrN lattice. TEM studies demonstrate that after irradiation the columnar microstructure is partially destroyed within ∼90 nm, introducing a large amount of damage in the CrN layers. Spectroscopic ellipsometry analysis shows that the optical band gap of CrN progressively reduces from 3.47 eV to 2.51 eV with the rise in ion fluence up to 20×10 ions/cm. Four point probe measurements of the films indicated that as the Xe ion fluence increases, the electrical resistivity rises from 770 to 1607μΩcm. After post-implantation annealing crystalline grains become larger and lattice distortion disappears, which influences optical band gap values and electrical resistivity of CrN.


: Images containing faces are essential to intelligent vision-based human computer interaction, and research efforts in face processing include face recognition, face tracking, pose estimation, and expression recognition. The rapidly expanding research in face processing is based on the premise that information about a user's identity, state, and intent can be extracted from images and that computers can then react accordingly, e.g., by knowing person's identity, person may be authenticated to utilize a particular service or not. A first step of any face processing system is registering the locations in images where faces are present. However, face registration for whole database is a challenging task because of variability in scale, location, orientation (up-right, rotated), and pose (frontal, profile). Facial expression, occlusion, and lighting conditions also change the overall appearance of face. The Image registration algorithm will register all these images present in the database. The face recognition algorithm which is insensitive to large variation in lighting direction and facial expression is to be implemented. Taking a pattern classification approach, each pixel in an image can be considered as a coordinate in a high-dimensional space. The advantage of this is that the images of a particular face, under varying illumination but fixed pose, lie in a 3D linear subspace of the high dimensional image space— if the face is a Lambertian surface. However, since faces are not truly Lambertian surfaces and do indeed produce self-shadowing images will deviate from this linear subspace. Rather than explicitly modeling this deviation, project the image into a subspace in such a manner which discounts those regions of the face with large deviation. This is achieved by using dimension reduction techniques like Principal component analysis (PCA), Linear Discriminant Laplacian faces, and other modified approaches like A Priori Laplacian.


ABSTRACT In addition to social damage, the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic also caused huge economic losses in the beginning of 2020, especially for companies in the tourism sector. The airline market was no exception. This study examines the significance of the business model of European listed airlines – low cost carriers (LCCs), full service carriers (FSCs) – for stock market performance. We use event study on the 11 airlines included in the sample. In terms of cumulative average abnormal returns, i.e. the most significant deviations from expected returns, negative phases can be detected in the entire and third stage of the pandemic. FSCs performed significantly better than LCCs at the time of the pandemic on 24 February, when European stock markets suffered the most damage; the business model overwrote financial indicators during the toughest period of the crisis. Although most LCCs had higher cash/assets ratios, they still produced worse results than the average performance of companies with lower cash/assets ratios. This analysis helps to ensure that, in addition to examining financial indicators, the enumeration of the business model in this industry can also be decisive. The future possibilities of the research are discussed at the end of the study.


This paper estimates short-run and long-run elasticities of tax revenue with respect to GDP in eight Latin American countries using quarterly data. Taxes considered are corporate income tax (CIT), personal income tax (PIT), value-added tax (VAT), and overall taxes. Results indicate that long-run elasticities are statistically and economically larger than 1, whereas short-run elasticities appear not to be statistically different from zero in the majority of cases. Tax systems seem very elastic in Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. The CIT exhibits the largest estimated long-run elasticity in most countries. Focusing on short-run elasticities that show statistical significance, only the CIT in Colombia and the PIT in Brazil and Colombia show larger fluctuations over the business cycle than growth potential in the long run. Overall, our results indicate that tax systems in Latin America are significantly more elastic than previous estimations.


Three trials of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) during the maximum voluntary muscle contraction (MVC) were repeated at 15-minute intervals for 1 hour to examine the effects on motor evoked potentials (MEPs) in the digital muscles and pinching muscle force before and after 4 high-intensity TMSs (test 1 condition) or sham TMS (test 2 condition) with MVC. Under the placebo condition, real TMS with MVC was administered only before and 1 hour after the sham TMS with MVC. Magnetic stimulation at the foramen magnum level (FMS) with MVC was performed by the same protocol as that for the test 2 condition. As a result, MEP sizes in the digital muscles significantly increased after TMS with MVC under test conditions compared with the placebo conditions (P < 0.05). Pinching muscle force was significantly larger 45 minutes and 1 hour after TMS with MVC under the test conditions than under the placebo condition (P < 0.05). FMS significantly decreased MEP amplitudes 60 minutes after the sham TMS with MVC (P < 0.005). The present results suggest that intermittently repeated TMS with MVC facilitates motor neuron excitabilities and muscle force. However, further studies are needed to confirm the effects of TMS with MVC and its mechanism.


This paper addresses the problem of achieving a balance in satisfying a network service provider's requirements: maintaining an acceptable call acceptance rate, satisfying protection requirements of requests, and controlling the signaling overhead in case of a component failure, in IP-over-WDM networks in a dynamic traffic arrival scenario. Satisfying all these aspects is a difficult task especially when the traffic pattern is dynamic in nature and a single layer protection approach is followed. In this work, first we propose a multi-layer protection scheme for achieving a better and acceptable tradeoff between blocking performance and signaling overhead in IP-over-WDM networks. We define various operational settings in the proposed scheme and investigate their impacts on the performance of the scheme. An important feature of this scheme is that, these settings allow a network service provider to select a suitable operational strategy for achieving the desired tradeoff based on network's policy and traffic demand. Then we propose an adaptive protection approach for dynamic traffic in consideration of providing better protection to requests as much as possible while considering blocking performance and signaling overhead. Through simulation experiments we evaluate the performance of the proposals and demonstrate their effectiveness


Despite the current interest in using closed areas for fisheries management, few studies have actually examined the benefits for invertebrate fisheries such as scallops. This study details the dynamics of a population of great scallops Pecten maximus (L.), within a closed area and an adjacent fished area off the Isle of Man, over a 14 yr period (1989 to 2003). Scallop densities were very low in both areas when the closed area was set up, but increased at an accelerated rate over time within the closed area. Scallop densities also increased on the adjacent fishing ground, but not to the same extent. Consequently, the density of scallops above the minimum legal landing size (110 mm SL) was more than 7 times higher in the closed area than in the fished area by 2003. There was also a shift towards much older and larger scallops in the closed area and, correspondingly, lower estimates of total mortality. Experimental dredging of 2 plots within the closed area confirmed that fishing drove these differences in population dynamics and structure. These patterns of scallop density, age and size structure resulted in the exploitable biomass (adductor muscle and gonad) of scallops being nearly 11 times higher in the closed area than in the fished area by 2003, and the reproductive biomass was 12.5 times higher. This is significant for fisheries management because the build up of high densities of large P. maximus individuals enhanced local reproductive potential and therefore the likelihood of export of larvae to the surrounding fishing grounds. Along with these direct benefits of closed area protection, juvenile scallops had higher survival and individual growth rates in the closed area, apparently in response to reduced fishing disturbance. Although juvenile scallops are not subject to direct removal by fishing, protection during this critical phase therefore appeared to assist the recovery of the closed area population. In summary, this study joins a growing number indicating that the use of closed areas offers a range of benefits over more traditional methods of managing fisheries. Fisheries for relatively sedentary and long-lived species such as P. maximus appear to be particularly suitable for this type of management.


Previous studies have reported that atrazine, a widely used herbicide that selectively inhibits photosynthesis in broadleaf and grassy weeds, has adverse effects on reproductive function in the male, suggesting a direct effect of atrazine on the hypothalamicpituitary-testicular axis. As yet, however, no studies have critically examined the doses of atrazine that elicit such effects, and few have focused on the mechanism by which atrazine acts. Herein we report a dose-response study of the effects of atrazine ingestion on reproductive function in male Sprague-Dawley rats during a critical developmental period, the peripubertal period. Atrazine was administered by gavage to rats from day 22 to day 47 of age, at doses of 1-200 mg/kg body weight per day. Atrazine administration of up to 50 mg/kg per day had no effect on any of the measured variables. Serum testosterone concentration was reduced by atrazine at doses of 100 and 200 mg/kg per day, as were seminal vesicle and ventral prostate weights. Intratesticular testosterone concentration was reduced in parallel with serum testosterone, suggesting that the reductions in serum testosterone resulted from reduced testosterone production by Leydig cells or from changes in testosterone metabolism within the testis, or both. Serum luteinizing hormone (LH) concentration was reduced despite the reduced serum testosterone, suggesting an effect on the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland, or both. At the termination of the study, the average body weight of rats receiving atrazine at 100 mg/kg per day was found to be reduced by approximately 9%. This suggested the possibility that the effects of atrazine on the reproductive tract may not be direct, but rather, the noted deficits of the male reproductive tract resulted from reduced food intake by the treated rats. We tested this by feeding control (vehicle-gavaged) rats amounts of food equivalent to that consumed by the atrazine-fed rats, and then assessing reproductive tract endpoints. Even mild food restriction resulted in reductions in serum testosterone concentration, in the weights of androgen-dependent organs, and in serum LH concentration; the same deficits that were seen in atrazine-gavaged rats. Indeed, the effects of atrazine on the male reproductive tract seen in rats receiving atrazine at greater than 50 mg/kg per day could not be distinguished from the effects of reduced food consumption. These results suggest that caution must be exercised before concluding that atrazine (or any potentially toxic chemical) has direct, detrimental effects.


ABSTRACT Park, S.S.; Rhim, Y.T.; Kim, M.J.; Kim, S.K., and Yoo, J.I., 2014. The influence of perceived risk on participation motivation and re-participation intention in marine sports. The purpose of this study was to identify the influence of perceived risk on participation motivation and intention for re-participation amongst marine sports participants. To achieve this purpose, the established path among measurement items and analyzed self-administrated surveys collected from 300 marine sports club members were analyzed using SPSS and AMOS as follows. First, both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were conducted to examine the reliability and validity of scale and to descriptive statistics. Second, multi group analysis was conducted to examine if there was a significant difference in the established path model between sexes. Third, both correlation and multiple regression analysis were conducted to examine the inter relation among measurement items of the established path. Forth, path analysis was conducted to examine the path of established study model. The results were as follows. First, the structure of each measurement item was confirmed. Second, there was significant difference in established path model between sexes. There were significant differences in participation motivation and intention to re-participate between sexes, higher in men, but no significant difference in perceived risk. Third, there is a significant positive or negative correlation among each measurement item. Forth, perceived risk has a direct influence on participation motivation (direct effect= −.33), and participation motivation has a direct influence on re-participation intentions (direct effect= .56). As a result, this research shows that the lower the perceived risk, the higher the participation motivation and the re-participation intention in marine sports.


Shrubland vegetation has not received as much scientific attention in the Caribbean as forest vegetation has. However, shrublands constitute ~25% of the woody vegetation classification units in the Caribbean, and in 10 islands that we analyzed, the average cover of shrublands was 16% of the land area and 27% of the vegetation area. Caribbean vegetation is subject to strong environmental gradients, and many tree species change habit from arboreal to shrubby along those gradients. Shrublands usually occur at the extremes of edaphic and climatic gradients, which explains why many studies of forests in the Caribbean are actually studies of shrublands or include shrublands. Shrubland vegetation is of scientific interest because it possesses adaptations for dealing with extreme conditions of drought, oligotrophy, salinity, inundation, fire, temperature, and wind. These conditions have floristic, ecological, and ecophysiological consequences. Caribbean shrublands, particularly those on ultramafic or serpentine soils, have a high level of endemism and high species diversity. Shrublands exhibit a high level of leaf sclerophylly, high root-to-shoot ratios, and high resilience. We generalize the development of shrublands with a stress model that emphasizes environmental gradients and duration (chronic or acute) of limiting conditions. Human activity is creating shrubland habitat, a trend that is bound to intensify in the Anthropocene Epoch. These changes in environmental conditions are leading to novel shrublands where introduced species mix with native ones forming new species assemblages.


Objective. The presence of apolipoprotein E (ApoE) 1 4 allele might be related to higher pain experience due to increased risk for potentially painful physical conditions and cognitive impairment (less efficient coping with pain). This hypothesis is clinically relevant to examine in adults with Down syndrome (DS) because they are at risk for painful physical conditions, their presence of ApoE 1 4isrelatedtocognitiveimpairment,andtheirpainexperience isunclear. The presentpilotstudyaddressedtheassociations between ApoE genotype, cognition, and pain in DS. Method. DNA analysis of saliva, neuropsychological tests (assessing memory and executive functioning), and self-reporting painscales(inrestandaftermovement)wereusedwithacross-sectionaldesignin146adultswithDS(meanage39.1years,mildto moderate intellectual disabilities, 46% men, 30% ApoE 1 4 carrier). The difference between ApoE 1 4 carriers and noncarriers was not statistically significant for cognitive function, pain experience, and prevalence of potentially painful conditions. Among 1 4 carriers, the presence of potentially painful conditions was associated with worse executive functioning ( p ¼ .022, r ¼ .39). Conclusions. The clinical implication of the results is that ApoE 1 4 in DS may play a role in pain, although the theoretical explanation via associations with pain experience and cognition remains unclear. Further research should include a large sample of adults with DS selected on diagnosed painful conditions to obtain more insight into the possible role of ApoE genotype (and its association with cognition) in the pain experience of this target group.


The activity of the lysosomal hydrolytic enzyme, N-acetyl-beta-D-hexosaminidase, was determined in the epididymis of control and vasectomized rats. Vasectomy did not cause changes in enzyme levels suggesting normal metabolic function in the epididymis.


Developing a distributed application in a Grid context is likely to require considerable effort, whether to evolve existing code or to upgrade programmers' skills, for the sake of adapting to Grid‐specific communication technologies. As a solution, targeted to the Java technology, this paper proposes HiC, a high‐level communication infrastructure, which hides the low‐level data transfer mechanisms and hides concerns about them from applications. HiC adheres to a service‐aware, connection‐oriented, object stream paradigm. It can easily cater for a new data‐transfer technology, without any impact on the application built on top of it and, furthermore, without undergoing much adaptation itself. Architecturally, HiC consists of two layers. The upper layer allows software to obtain remote services through simple but powerful abstractions, while the lower layer provides the upper layer with uniform access to a specific underlying data‐transfer technology, such as GridRPC and XIO. The performance of HiC has been evaluated, and found to be acceptable even for relatively small amounts of data and the faster XIO data transfer. A standard interfacing architecture is also proposed, whereby all dependencies on HiC of user software can be confined within just an 'intermediary' pair per service. Furthermore, HiC has proven useful as a communication infrastructure for our ReD reflective framework for transparent distributed object allocation. The combination of HiC and ReD affords an advantageous synergy, which frees developers from the concerns of retargeting ReD to specific transfer technologies, and implementing the intermediaries between an application and HiC. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


We examine the determinants and outcomes of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) accepting a $1 salary, a compensation practice that occurs relatively frequently in high-profile firms and is debated by regulators, investors, and the media. Using a hand-collected sample of 93 CEOs from 91 firms between 1993 and 2011, we examine the triggers preceding the $1 salary decision, the factors associated with the decision, subsequent stock returns, and the outcomes for the CEOs. Our evidence is consistent with two explanations for the phenomenon: 1) it is a gesture of sacrifice by CEOs of firms in crisis, and 2) it is a signal of better future performance by CEOs of growing firms. Our analyses highlight the two different circumstances and shed light on an interesting debate that has thus far been supported only by anecdotal evidence.


Introduction There have been considerable improvements in C-Arm angiographic flat panel detectors and software reconstruction algorithms that allows for improved spatial resolution as well as osseous and soft tissue differentiation. Our goal was to compare multislice CT (MSCT) to angiographic CT (DYNA CT) in myelographic imaging, to evaluate the benefits of DYNA CT and its possible clinical applications. Materials and Methods In total, 70 consecutive patients with degenerative spine disease (cervical = 16, thoracic = 3, lumbar = 51) underwent DYNA CT and MSCT Myelography. DYNA CT myelography was performed on a flat panel Siemens Artis Zee biplane neuroangiography platform with images reconstructed on an independent Leonardo workstation. MSCT was performed on 16 slice Siemens or GE MSCT scanner with MPR images reconstructed locally. Four reviewers, two experienced neuroradiologists and two neurosurgeons will review all MSCT and DYNA CT source and MPR images for overall impression, contrast distribution, perceptibility of discs, perceptibility of bines, delineation of spinal canal, delineation of nerve roots, hardware artifact, overall diagnostic applicability. Images were scored on a 1–5 scale with 1 = very poor, 2 = poor, 3 = moderate, 4 = good and 5 = very good. Results Full data analysis is pending. To date, both CT and DYNA CT were found to be of diagnostic quality 98% and 95% of the time respectively. 51 (71%) of the DYNA CT's were found to be of the same or better diagnostic quality while only 18 (26%) were found to be inferior but still of diagnostic quality. The DYNA CT scored better on perceptibility of bones, spinal canal and nerve roots when compared to MSCT. DYNA CT excelled at evaluation of nerve root evaluation but was limited by hardware artifact. We found that DYNA CT is comparable to MSCT and subjectively has better imaging quality in virgin spines but is inferior when orthopaedic hardware is present. Discussion DYNA CT myelography may be useful in the evaluation of degenerative spine disease in the virgin spine. Pending software improvements with metal artifact correction software will likely improve these results. The results will be updated at the time of the meeting. Abstract O-032 Figure 1 Disclosures I. Chaudry: 2; C; Penumbra, Microvention, Covidien. N. Brooks: None. D. Fiorella: None. R. Turner: None. A. Turk: 1; C; Penumbra, Microvention, Covidien.


Abstract 1. In a paper read before the Societ9y. in 1902, the Author showed, on the evidence of extensive high-level deposits of Decken-schotter in Subalpine France and Switzerland, that the principal Swiss lake-basins could not have existed at the time when those deposibs were formed, during and after the first or Pliocene glaciation of the Alps. In the present paper he deals with the question reserved in the preceding one, that is, to which subsequent period the formation of those lake-basins should be assigned. By the light of further recent investigations in the different localities, he first considers the conditions of the Zurich lake-valley, where the successive glacial and fiuviatile deposits are clearly defined, and theu applies his conclusions to the other principal lake-basins lying in the same zone along the edge of the Alps. 2. The hitherto generally-accepted view that the lake-basins are pre-Glacial in the old sense, or were formed during the first inter- Glacial period, rests, in the main, on two arguments : (1) that the alluvia at the lower ends of the lakes are all Glacial, not only from their appearance, but because the materials composing them could only have been transported thence by glaciers, which either passed over the lakes by bridging them, or through them by completely filling them with ice; and (2) that the zonal bending of the Molasse along the edge of the Alps, to which the lake-basins owe their existence, odcurred before the second or maximum glaciation,because on the hills flanking the


This paper measured the vibration transmissibility of several honeycomb paperboards and the attenuation coefficient. Laboratory was used to determine the natural frequency of the thickness of 10mm, 20mm, 30mm, 40mm Honeycomb Paperboard. The test results show that the honeycomb paperboard resonance frequency decreases with increasing thickness, while the vibration transmissibility increases with increasing thickness. We have also established finite element model of honeycomb paperboard to simulate its vibration properties. The result of simulation is in good coincidence with the experimental result. In addition, some cases can use computer simulation instead of laboratory testing to obtain the natural frequencies of honeycomb paperboard.


Patient: Female, 58 Final Diagnosis: — Symptoms: — Medication: — Clinical Procedure: — Specialty: — Objective: Diagnostic/therapeutic accidents Background: Tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α inhibitors are widely used for rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, there are several risks to use TNFα inhibitors. Given the properties of TNF-α inhibitors, prevention and early detection of tuberculosis (TB) are especially important. Even among TNF-α inhibitors, the risk of TB infection differs according to each drug. The incidence of TB is lowest with etanercept (ETN). We present a case of urinary tract TB during treatment with ETN. Case Report: A 58-year-old woman was receiving ETN for RA. Before starting ETN, isoniazid (INH) prophylaxis was started. RA was well controlled by ETN. However, 32 months after starting ETN, she noticed urinary frequency and a sensation of residual urine. The diagnosis was elusive, and it took 3 months until urinary tract TB was finally diagnosed. The TB resolved with antituberculosis medication, but RA disease activity flared up after ETN was discontinued. ETN was resumed with careful monitoring for TB recurrence. After resuming ETN, the RA was again well controlled, with no recurrence of TB. Conclusions: Patients should be monitored for development of TB during ETN treatment, but ETN can be used safely with careful management.


At the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the CMS experiment's Level 1 Trigger system for the endcap Cathode Strip Chambers (CSC) has 180 optical links to transmit Level 1 trigger primitives from 60 peripheral crates to the CSC Track Finder (CSCTF) which reconstructs muon candidates. Currently there is a limit of 3 trigger primitives per crate serving a cluster of 9 chambers. With the anticipated LHC luminosity increase up to 1035 cm−2s−1 at full energy of 7 TeV/beam the Muon Port Card (MPC), which transmits the primitives, the receiver in the CSCTF (Sector Processor) and the optical transmission system itself need to be upgraded. At the same time it is very desirable to preserve all the old optical links intact for compatibility with the present Track Finder during transition period. We present here the results of our efforts in the past two years to upgrade the MPC board, including the hardware developments, data transmission tests and latency measurements.


The authors describe the results of a survey completed in December 1987 on the production and employment of PhDs and faculty of PhD-granting computer science/engineering departments during the academic year, 1986-7. All 123 computer science departments (111 US and 12 Canadian) participated. In addition, for the first time, 22 US departments offering the PhD in computer engineering (CE) were included. CE statistics are reported separately so that comparisons with previous years can be made for computer science (CS), but the intention is to merge all statistics for CS and CE after several years.<<ETX>>


Osaka Jogakuin College firstname.lastname@example.com This paper describes research done to empirically study the efficacy of using Criterion, a commercial web-based writing evaluation platform, as a revision aid, especially within a class following the Process Writing pedagogy. This paper first describes the background and rationale for Criterion automated writing evaluation, the Process Writing approach, as well as the natural language processing techniques used by Criterion. In this study an essay was submitted to Criterion multiple times with variations in a single feature each time. By logging the results and comparing how Criterion scored each submission it is possible to determine what components of an essay influence Criterion's scoring. The conclusions from these results suggest that Criterion alone is not an adequate revision aid for the developing writer.


Photonic implementations of neural networks, which use electronics to furnish gain and implement neural transfer functions and establish weighted connections between neutrons using incoherent light, are discussed. Fully or partially optical implementations incorporate coherent light and volume or planar holograms to establish interconnection weights, and spatial light modulators to implement neural transfer functions. The implementation of learning algorithms on optoelectronic neural networks is also discussed.<<ETX>>


Biometric authentication refers to identifying an individual based on his or her
distinguishing physiological and/or behavioral characteristics. It associates an
individual with a previously determined identity based on that individual's appearance
or behavior. Because many physiological or behavioral characteristics (biometric
indicators) are distinctive to each person, biometric identifiers are inherently more
reliable and more capable than knowledge-based (e.g., password) and token-based
(e.g., a key) techniques in differentiating between an authorized person and a
fraudulent impostor. For this reason, more and more organizations are looking to
automated identity authentication systems to improve customer satisfaction, security,
and operating efficiency as well as to save critical resources.
Biometric authentication is a challenging pattern recognition problem; it
involves more than just template matching. The intrinsic nature of biometric data must
be carefully studied, analyzed, and its properties taken into account in developing
suitable representation and matching algorithms. The intrinsic variability of data with
time and environmental conditions, the social acceptability and invasiveness of
acquisition devices, and the facility with which the data can be counterfeited must be
considered in the choice of a biometric indicator for a given application. In order to
deploy a biometric authentication system, one must consider its reliability, accuracy,
applicability, and efficiency. Eventually, it may be necessary to combine several
biometric indicators (multimodal-biometrics) to cope with the drawbacks of the
individual biometric indicators.
One of the most important aspects of a biometric authentication system is
benchmarking. A biometric authentication system is likely to make some errors.
Understanding the inherent limitations of a biometric system and evaluating
competing systems are the most difficult, but necessary tasks. The reason is that, quite
often, the test data used is not truly representative of the population and the operating
environment; the performance evaluation tests only take a snapshot of all the possible
behaviors of the system, ignoring the variability due to the differences in the
population of all real users as well as the variability due to environment.
We hope that this workshop will help many people working in biometrics to
attain a broader vision of the open problems and their solutions. A couple of papers at
this workshop deal with the psychological aspects of biometrics, which is a rather
unexplored aspect of this discipline. Even though the papers included in this volume
do not cover all facets of this emerging and promising discipline and technology, we
would be satisfied if this book led to some new insights in developing the next
generation of biometric authentication systems.


ecological stoichiometry to biochemical composition: variation in N and P supply alters Abstract One of the major challenges in ecological stoichiometry is to establish how environmental changes in resource availability may affect both the biochemical composition of organisms and the species composition of communities. This is a pressing issue in many coastal waters, where anthropogenic activities have caused large changes in riverine nutrient inputs. Here we investigate variation in the biochemical composition and synthesis of amino acids, fatty acids (FA), and carbohydrates in mixed phytoplankton communities sampled from the North Sea. The communities were cultured in chemostats supplied with different concentrations of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) and phosphorus (DIP) to establish four different types of resource limitations. Diatoms dominated under N-limited, N+P limited and P-limited conditions. Cyanobacteria became dominant in one of the N-limited chemostats and green algae dominated in the one P-limited chemostat and under light-limited conditions. Changes in nutrient availability directly affected amino acid content, which was lowest under N and N+P limitation, higher under P-limitation and highest when light was the limiting factor. Storage carbohydrate content showed the opposite trend and storage FA content seemed to be co-dependent on community composition. The synthesis of essential amino acids was affected under N and N+P limitation, as the transformation from non-essential to essential amino acids decreased at DIN:DIP ≤ 6. The simple community structure and clearly identifiable nutrient limitations confirm and clarify previous field findings in the North Sea. Our results show that different phytoplankton groups are capable of adapting their key biosynthetic rates and hence their biochemical composition to different degrees when experiencing shifts in nutrient availability. This will have implications for phytoplankton growth, community structure, and the nutritional quality of phytoplankton as food for higher trophic levels. In this study, we explore how changes in N and P loads may potentially affect the biochemical composition of coastal marine phytoplankton. As model system, we inoculated laboratory chemostats with mixed phytoplankton communities sampled from the North Sea. This experimental approach enabled a systematic investigation of the effects of different N:P supply ratios on resource limitation, biochemical composition and biosynthesis rates of the phytoplankton community using compound-specific isotope analysis.


Background The experience of transitioning to an academic faculty position can be improved with standardized educational interventions. Although a number of such interventions have been described, few utilize an evaluation framework, describe a robust evaluation process, and address why their interventions were successful. In this article, the authors apply a logic model to describe their efforts to develop, implement, evaluate, and revise a comprehensive academic career development curriculum among pediatric subspecialty fellows. They describe inputs, activities, outputs, and outcomes using quantitative data from fellow evaluations and qualitative data from faculty interviews. Methods Methods are described under the input and activities sections. The curriculum started with collaboration among educational leadership and conducting a needs assessment. Using the needs assessment results and targeted learning objectives, we piloted the curriculum and then implemented the full curriculum 1 year later. Results Results are described under the outputs and outcomes sections. We present immediate, short-term, and 6-month evaluation data. Cumulative data over 3 years reveal that fellows consistently acquired knowledge relevant to transitioning and that they applied acquired knowledge to prepare for finding jobs and career advancement. The curriculum also benefits faculty instructors who gain a sense of reward by filling a critical knowledge gap and fostering fellows' professional growth. Conclusion The authors relate the success and effectiveness of the curriculum to principles of adult learning, and share lessons learned, including the importance of buy-in from junior and senior fellows and faculty, collaboration, and designating the time to teach and learn.