Achieving 3D structures that can be reversibly formed from dry 2D polymer films is useful for the development of suitable smart materials capable of converting an external stimulus into a mechanical response. For the construction of dynamic 3D structures, carbon nanotubes dispersed in liquid crystalline vitrimers constitute so far one of the few available materials that can show robust reconfiguration, easy repair, and low-temperature resistance. However, the severe aggregation of carbon nanotubes causes defects in the materials formed and incurs additional costs. Here, we show that organic polydopamine (PDA) nanoparticles can well replace carbon nanotubes to make suitable liquid crystalline vitrimers for the construction of dynamic 3D structures. We were able to disperse the PDA nanoparticles homogenously into the polymer matrix without carrying out any surface modification and without using any dispersant or sonication, which are required procedures for dispersing almost all inorganic nanoparticles into a polymer matrix. Moreover, the mechanical properties of the liquid crystalline vitrimer were found to be greatly improved. Using this composite, we also showed here a new method to achieve light-controlled 3D deformation into static structures.


ABSTRACT Women are at higher risk of Plasmodium falciparum infection when pregnant. The decreasing risk of malaria with subsequent pregnancies is attributed to parity-dependent acquisition of antibodies against placental parasites expressing variant surface antigens, VAR2CSA, that mediate placental sequestration through adhesion to chondroitin sulfate A (CSA). However, modulation of immunity during pregnancy may also contribute to increase the risk of malaria. We compared antibody responses among 30 Mozambican primigravidae and 60 multigravidae at delivery, 40 men, and 40 children. IgG levels were measured against the surface antigens of erythrocytes infected with P. falciparum isolated from 12 pregnant women (4 placental and 8 peripheral blood isolates) and 26 nonpregnant hosts. We also measured IgG levels against merozoite recombinant antigens and total IgG. Placental P. falciparum infection was associated with increased levels of total IgG as well as IgG levels against merozoite antigens and parasite isolates from pregnant and nonpregnant hosts. We therefore stratified comparisons of antibody levels by placental infection. Compared to multigravidae, uninfected primigravidae had lower total IgG as well as lower levels of IgGs against peripheral blood isolates from both pregnant and nonpregnant hosts. These differences were not explained by use of bed nets, season at delivery, neighborhood of residence, or age. Compared to men, infected primigravidae had higher levels of IgGs against isolates from pregnant women and CSA-binding lines but not against other isolates, supporting the concept of a pregnancy-specific development of immunity to these parasite variants. Results of this study show that parity and placental infection can modulate immune responses during pregnancy against malaria parasites.


In humans, infants who are born small have been reported to have higher blood pressure in adulthood than do larger infants. This suggests that factors in the intrauterine environment that affect fetal growth can program the individual for hypertension later in life. The present study determined whether there is a similar, naturally occurring relationship between birth weight and adult blood pressure in rats. Female Sprague-Dawley rats bred in our colony were fed a normal diet during pregnancy. On the day of delivery, any pups that weighed <90% of the mean pup weight for the litter were identified as runts. For each runt, a sex-matched littermate of normal weight was also identified and assigned to this study. These pairs were chronically instrumented at ∼20 wk of age. Mean arterial pressure was significantly higher in runt male and female offspring compared with their normal birth weight littermates (males: 149 ± 7, runts versus 129 ± 4 mm Hg, controls; females: 128 ± 1, runts versus 119 ± 2 mm Hg, controls). Although the runts had smaller body weights at study than did their littermate controls, the kidney-to-body weight ratio and renal function normalized to kidney or body weight were not different. These studies indicate that adult blood pressure is related to birth weight in rats, as it is in humans. The relative hypertension in runt animals is not due to gross differences in renal function but may be related to more subtle renal structural and/or functional differences.


Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is a major cause of end-stage renal disease throughout the world; until now there is no specific drug available. In this work, we use herba artemisiae capillaris extract (HACE) to alleviate renal fibrosis characterized by the excessive accumulation of extracellular matrix (ECM) in rats, aiming to investigate the protective effect of the HACE on DN. We found that the intragastric treatment of high-dose HACE could reverse the effect of streptozotocin not only to decrease the level of blood glucose and blood lipid in different degree but also further to improve renal functions. It is worth mentioning that the effect of HACE treatment was comparable to the positive drug benazepril. Moreover, we found that HACE treatment could on one hand inhibit oxidative stress in DN rats through regulating enzymatic activity for scavenging reactive oxygen species and on the other hand increase the ECM degradation through regulating the activity of metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) and the expression of tissue transglutaminase (tTG), which explained why HACE treatment inhibited ECM accumulation. On the basis of above experimental results, we conclude that HACE prevents DN development in a streptozotocin-induced DN rat model, and HACE is a promising candidate to cure DN in clinic.


Enforcement is a fundamental challenge for international law. Sanctions are costly to impose, difficult to coordinate, and often ineffective in accomplishing their goals. Rewards are likewise costly and domestically unpopular. Thus, efforts to address pressing international problems - such as reversing climate change and coordinating monetary policy - often fall short. This article offers a novel approach to international enforcement and demonstrates how it would apply to those challenging problems. It develops a mechanism of Reversible Rewards, which combine sticks and carrots in a unique, previously unexplored, way. Reversible Rewards require a precommitted fund aimed to reward the target state for its compliance. Alternatively, the same reward can be used to pay for sanctions in case of target's non-compliance. Reversible Rewards solve two (related) problems that undermine existing efforts to enforce international law: high costs and low credibility. The article demonstrates that, relative to sanctions or rewards used alone, Reversible Rewards double the incentives for compliance that any given enforcement fund can generate.d.


We study the influence of coordination number and bond length on the phase stability and orbital occupation in Ti using density functional theory. In particular, Ti under a wide range of conditions (equilibrium state, hydrostatic pressure, anisotropic strain, and phase transformations) is systematically investigated allowing us to derive generic energetic and electronic trends. Our analysis of the correlations between electronic structure and the atomic geometry reveals that the most suitable descriptors of the system are an effective coordination number and an effective bond length. Utilizing these descriptors, we show that (i) the phase stability of Ti increases with coordination number, because of the increased number of interatomic bonds; (ii) the occupation number of the d (s and p) orbital decreases (increases) with increasing the bond length, because of the localized (delocalized) character of the d (p and s) orbital. These dependencies are particularly evident after applying a simple harmonic strain correction to the energy and an electron‐transfer correction within the ω phase. The physical picture derived from pure Ti is used to explain the phase stability and orbital occupation of Ti–Nb and Ti–Zr alloys, which reveals the underlying mechanisms for various experimental phenomena in Ti alloys.


Identifying a preclinical phase of Alzheimer's Disease (PCAD) that is distinct from cognitive changes in healthy aging continues to be a major research focus. Combining neuropsychological and neuroimaging methodologies should improve our ability to differentiate healthy from pathological aging, although studies that utilize both methods often result in equivocal findings, possibly due to variability in cognitive test performance that may be capturing distinct phenotypes. One method of capturing this cognitive variability is to utilize contrasting neuropsychological tests to identify subgroups representative of distinct cognitive phenotypes, and determine whether differences in brain morphometry support these classifications. We review several approaches to defining cognitive subgroups, and we consider the possibility that cognitive asymmetry might provide one means of identifying both functional and structural changes associated with aging and dementia.


Time spent at and near the sea surface was measured for 25 narwhals, Monodon monoceros, and 39 belugas or white whales, Delphinapterus leucas, in West Greenland and Canada from 1993 through 1999, using satellite-linked data recorders. Narwhals spent less time at the surface than belugas did, and the surfacing time of belugas also varied between localities. No clear differences in surfacing time were associated with the time of day, but belugas tended to make more dives during the night than during the day. Despite large variability in surfacing behaviour among individual whales, time spent at the surface by both species declined from August through November. The few data collected from narwhals from November to February indicate that surfacing times remained low during this period although more than 25% of each 6 h period was spent at the surface. Whales made between 2 and 20 dives per hour, and narwhals made significantly fewer dives than did belugas, for which number of dives varied with locality. The number of dives deeper than 8 m declined substantially during the autumn for belugas and narwhals that were moving offshore. When travelling, the whales apparently made fewer dives than at other times.


Budget and finance management is one of the key functions of Local Governments
(LGs), through which they perform their competencies: their own, as well as
those which are delegated by higher levels of the Government. LGs use a number
of management tools in conducting the budgeting process (planning, executing
and controlling), among which specific budget models and formats are very
important and particularly effective instruments. This article elaborates the most
widespread budget models in LG practice such as Line-Item Budgeting, as well as
specific ones such as Zero-Based Budgeting, Performance Based Budgeting, and
finally the most advanced, such as Program Budgeting. The major features
(advantages as well as disadvantages) of each of those budgeting models are
briefly presented and discussed. In the following sections current budgeting
practices in Serbian local government units are analyzed and evaluated in respect
to the LG reform process which has been initiated during the 2000s. The general
goals of the reform process which refer to improvement of the efficiency and
transparency of the budget process and accountability of the main players in
planning, executing and controlling public finance at the local governmental level
- could be significantly affected by the selected and implemented budgeting
models. In respect to this the prospective of improving the current LG budgeting
practice through introduction of more advance budgeting models such as the
performance-based and program budgeting are elaborated and discussed in more
detail.


The authors conducted an exploratory study among a convenience sample of 260 Jordanian men and women, using self-administered open and closed questions to examine the participants' approach toward wife abuse. In general, there was high awareness of wife abuse and the different types of abuse (mainly physical and psychological), a general tendency to oppose wife abuse, a tendency to blame the victim for abuse, and a lesser tendency to blame the abuse on the husband, marital problems, as well as familial and societal conditions. There was also a strong tendency to consider wife abuse a personal and familial issue rather than a social and legal problem. Therefore, the preferred method for coping with wife abuse and violence was the expectation that the abused wife should change her behavior and assume responsibility to change her husband followed by resorting to informal agents (family or community or religious figures). Less preferred coping methods included confronting the husband and expressing desire to break up or separate and resorting to formal agents (social welfare programs, counseling, legal system), as a last resort in cases of repeated abuse and severe physical violence. The implications of these findings for future research, interventions, and policy formulation are discussed.


Coherent phonon excitation via femtosecond laser pulses can be used to control physical properties of matter, and enhancing coherent phonon excitation is highly relevant. Here, we report the strong enhancement of coherent phonon excitation in ${\mathrm{Fe}}_{3}{\mathrm{GeTe}}_{2}$ (FGT) via the resonance Raman effect. On the basis of the femtosecond transient optical spectroscopy measurements, the ${A}_{1\mathrm{g}}$ coherent phonon excitation in FGT is obtained as a function of pump photon energy. Its excitation can be maximized by tuning the pump photon energy. The maximum coherent phonon excitation at the 1.574-eV pump photon energy corresponds to an electronic transition in FGT, and is a direct result of the resonance Raman effect. The ${A}_{1\mathrm{g}}$ coherent phonon generation follows the impulsive stimulated Raman scattering mechanism. Our work demonstrates that the resonance Raman effect can be an effective way to enhance coherent phonon excitation via electronic excitation.


Volume III contains entries on the development of major fields in economics from the inception of systematic analysis until modern times. The reader is provided with succinct summary accounts of the main problems, the methods used to address them and the results obtained across time. The emphasis is on both the continuity and the major changes that have occurred in the economic analysis of problematic issues such as economic growth, income distribution, employment, inflation, business cycles and financial instability. Each Handbook can be read individually and acts as a self-contained volume in its own right. It can be purchased separately or as part of a three-volume set.


An enteric syndrome of turkey poults, characterized by enteritis, crop mycosis, intestinal changes (pale, thin-walled ballooning with watery contents), and rickets, occurred during 1988 in 74 turkey flocks from different farms belonging to 9 California turkey growers. The flocks ranged in size from 9,000 to 120,000 birds. Pools of intestine sections from 618 birds, representing 78 field cases, were examined. Histopathological examination of the intestines showed a mild to severe atrophy with a reduced depth of crypts, which was more prominent in the distal part of the small intestine. Viral isolation attempts with primary cell cultures of chicken embryo kidney cells were negative. Examination by electron microscopy of negatively stained intestinal specimens revealed the presence of Reoviridae particles of 58.8 to 80 nm in diameter. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay results on the intestinal pools for mammalian and group A avian rotaviruses were negative. A statistically significant relationship was found for the presence of Reoviridae particles in the intestines of 10-21-day-old birds. Of the 7 most common pathological conditions analyzed, 2, rickets and intestinal changes (thin-walled ballooning intestine with watery contents), showed a statistically significant association with the presence of Reoviridae particles.


THIS ARTICLE TRACES THE HISTORY of a byword for the look of age since the early seventeenth century in art writing, the museum, the restorer9s studio, and the art market. The seemingly material fact of
 patina has a career in the history of taste in Old Master painting through its old regime in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when it was much prized as an effect of time and as an artifice; in
 its modern age beginning with the formation of national museums, patina becomes an object of contention in the 99cleaning controversies99 that revolve around the obligations of the present toward the cultural
 legacy of the past. Postmodern patina has come to register the complex and precarious effects of age on old pictures in ways that should enable us to appreciate and to care for them more knowingly than
 we have been able to do before.


The latest threat in multidrug resistance in Gram-negative bacteria corresponds to the emergence of NDM-1-producing isolates that have been identified in several countries worldwide. The plasmid-mediated blaNDM-1 gene encodes a metallo-β-lactamase (MBL) with high carbapenemase activity and was first identified in Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae in Sweden from a patient transferred from India (14). It was later identified in different enterobacterial species from a series of patients in the United Kingdom, India, and Pakistan (8) and also from Australian and U.S. patients (3, 12).

We report here the case of an 18-year-old French female, with a history of cerebral vascular malformation that had been previously operated on, who developed an intracerebral hemorrhage during her vacation in southeast India in July 2010. She was admitted into an intensive care unit of the hospital of Pondicherry, where she received an operation. After 15 days of hospitalization in India, she was then transferred to the neurosurgical unit of a French hospital because of residual hemiplegia and aphasia. Following the occurrence of a febrile episode, a urinary infection was suspected from the urinary catheter placed in India. The catheter was removed, and the patient received an empirical treatment with amoxicillin-clavulanic acid. Urine cultures grew a Citrobacter freundii isolate (named STE) that was highly resistant to all β-lactams, including to carbapenems (MICs of imipenem, ertapenem, and meropenem were all >32 μg/ml). This isolate was also resistant to all aminoglycosides, sulfonamides, tetracycline, tigecycline, nitrofurantoin, and fluoroquinolones and remained susceptible to fosfomycin according to the CLSI guidelines (4), with the MIC of colistin being found at 0.5 μg/ml by the Etest method. Since the patient became apyretic, the antibiotic treatment was stopped after 3 days. No further colonization with the same bacterium was detected, neither for that patient, despite multiple screenings, nor for the other patients hospitalized simultaneously in the same unit.

Since the patient was coming from the Indian subcontinent, we focused our first PCR screening as described previously (14) and identified the blaNDM-1 gene in C. freundii STE. Then, we searched for additional β-lactamase genes, including extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) genes, MBL or AmpC genes, and class D β-lactamase genes, as described previously (5, 9, 11). Surprisingly, the search for other carbapenemase genes allowed for the identification of the blaVIM-4 MBL gene. In addition, the blaOXA-181 gene encoding a variant of the class D carbapenemase OXA-48 was identified, differing by four amino acid substitutions, namely, Thr104Ala, Asn110Asp, Glu175Gln, and Ser179Ala, according to the DBL nomenclature (6) (GenBank accession number {"type":"entrez-protein","attrs":{"text":"ADM26760","term_id":"304368223","term_text":"ADM26760"}}ADM26760). In silico analysis showed that this blaOXA-181 gene had been identified from an Enterobacter cloacae isolate recovered from India (see "Nucleotide sequence accession number" below). This isolate possessed additional β-lactamase genes, including the ESBL gene blaCTX-M-15, but also the blaOXA-1, blaOXA-9, blaOXA-10, blaTEM-1, and intrinsic blaCMY genes. There are nine β-lactamase genes in that same strain, including three carbapenemase genes. In addition, the armA gene encoding a 16S RNA methylase was identified by using a multiplex PCR approach as described previously (1), conferring high-level resistance to all aminoglycosides.

Plasmid analysis using the Kieser method (7) allowed for the identification of five plasmids in C. freundii STE, with respective sizes of 40, 65, 70, 160, and 200 kb, using E. coli 50192 as a reference size marker (13). Using the PCR-based replicon typing (PBRT) method as described previously (2), only one plasmid type, an IncHI1 type, was identified. Mating-out assays performed as described previously (10) allowed for the identification of the blaNDM-1 gene on a 65-kb plasmid (pSTE-1) that was cotransferred together with two other plasmids of 70 and 160 kb. This might suggest that pSTE-1 is a mobilizable plasmid, for which attempts to determine the Inc type remained unsuccessful. The blaCTX-M-15 gene was identified on the 70-kb plasmid that was also untypeable, together with the blaTEM-1 and blaOXA-1 genes. The armA gene was indentified on the 200-kb plasmid that belonged to the IncHI1 type.

This is the first example of importation of an Indian NDM-1-producing isolate in France following a hospital transfer, confirming the recent observations suggesting that the Indian subcontinent may represent an important reservoir of NDM-1 producers. This identification validates the nationwide strategy proposed recently in France to screen for multidrug-resistant bacteria, including carbapenemase producers, in patients directly transferred from a foreign hospital to a French hospital. This report indicates that unrelated carbapenemase genes may be spread along with the blaNDM-1 gene. It also underlines that most NDM-1 producers coproduced a 16S RNA methylase (either of the ArmA, RmtB, or RmtC type) constituting wide-spectrum aminoglycoside resistance determinants that further reduce the therapeutic options.


Cuticular study of the foliar epidermis of four spe cies of Dioscorea was carried out in order to supplement our present taxonomic knowledge of the f our members of this genus. Dioscorea alata, D. cayenensis, D. domentorum and D. rotundat a were collected from farmland within Kogi State University Campus. Five leaf samples of each species were harvested, from which cuticular samples were prepared by maceration, stai ned and mounted on slides. Abaxial and adaxial cuticles were prepared separately. A total of 40 slides were prepared and viewed in 10 fields of view using Leica binocular microscope at x40 objective. Collected data for numbers and types of Trichome and stomata were subjected to one way analysis of variance (ANOVA), Descriptive analysis, Test of Homogeneity and Multi ple comparison tests. There were significant variations in all the species for all the parameter s studied. The possibility of the use of these parameters in taxonomic delineation was discussed.


Before an aspect of a movement that is predicted by a control theory can be considered as evidence for that theory, it should be clear that this aspect is not the result of some other property of the movement. We investigate whether this condition is met in studies that claim to provide evidence for the tau-coupling theory. This theory proposes that moving targets are intercepted at a specified goal zone by maintaining a constant ratio between the tau (time to closure) of the gap between the hand and the goal zone and the tau of the gap between the hand and the moving target. In line with the theory, previous research has found a linear relationship between these two decreasing taus during the last part of such a movement. To investigate whether this linear relationship was a side-effect of smooth successful movements, we modeled smooth ballistic hand movements that were independent of the target's movement but led to successful interception. We found that the resulting taus of decreasing gaps were also related linearly. We conclude that this relationship cannot be considered as evidence for the tau-coupling theory.


We show that Canadian faculty unions have had no effect on university revenues, only a small positive effect on earnings, a negative effect on research output, and lead to earnings redistributions across disciplines and ranks. We argue that faculty unions have a negligible positive (and often negative) effect on average faculty wages, because a union that promotes the median faculty member's welfare negotiates wage redistributions and more onerous teaching conditions, despite the negative impact these changes have on research output. Average wages may rise, but only because non-unionized universities trade off wages against the non-pecuniary benefits from research and teaching.


In this study, it was modified a tensile Hopkinson bar with which it can be carried out tests up to a predetermined strain. During dynamic test using a Hopkinson bar, the final strain reached by the specimen was controlled by a stopping elongation system; this system include a snap ring to attenuate the effects of the compressive waves produced as result of the stopping system. To establish the characteristics of stopping system and to determine the suitable material for snap ring, simulation models had been performed using finite element method. Different mateials were considered for the snap ring, such as lead and polypropylene. The incident, reflected and transmitted waves obtained on the numerical simulation of the trapped dynamic test were compared with the unmodified one.


Cellulosic ethanol production has drawn much attention in recent years. However, there remain significant technical challenges before such production can be considered as economically feasible at an industrial scale. Among them, the efficient conversion of carbohydrates in lignocellulosic biomass into fermentable sugars is one of the most challenging technical difficulties in cellulosic ethanol production. Use of ionic liquids has opened new avenues to solve this problem by two different pathways. One is pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass using ionic liquids to increase its enzymatic hydrolysis efficiency. The other is to transform the hydrolysis process of lignocellulosic biomass from a heterogeneous reaction system to a homogeneous one by dissolving it into ionic liquids, thus improving its hydrolysis efficiency.


Objective of the research: to reveal implicit theories of innovativeness among members of the three ethno-cultural groups: Russians, the peoples of the North Caucasus (Chechens and Ingush), and Tuvinians, and their impact on the attitude to innovations in a cross-cultural comparison. Students and teachers of from secondary schools (N=804) have completed a questionnaire in Russian, which included the modified Adjective Check List (Runco et al., 1993) to measure the qualities necessary for innovators; also used was the authors's scale of Innovative Qqualities of Ppersonality (Lebedeva, Tatarko, 2009), measuring the attitudes to innovations (12 items). The mean on the scale's items constitutes "Integral Index of the Ppersonality's Iinnovativeness" (alpha Cronbach's scores are: 0,79 for Russians; 0,85 for North Caucasians; 0,80 for Tuvinians). Respondents were also asked also about their personal experience of innovation's the introduction or and / and or implementation of innovations. The data was processed using the statistical package SPSS (version 19) statistical package. To define the relationships of the variables we used structural modeling of latent variables with AMOS (version 19). Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses we have identified two blocks of implicit theories of innovativeness: «'Individual» ' implicit theories: open-mindedness, creativity, enthusiasm, risk propensity, imagination, high motivation, optimism, and «'Social» ' implicit theories: respect for authority, honesty, trust to in people. We have founded intercultural differences: the '«individual» ' theories of innovativeness are more pronounced among Russians, ; the respondents from the North Caucasus and Tuva prefer social theories of innovativeness more. Using structural equation modeling we have built a culturally universal model of the impact of implicit theories of innovativeness on the personal experience of innovations through attitudes toward innovations. The effect of implicit theories of innovativeness on the attitudes to innovation is more pronounced in the traditional cultures of the North Caucasus and Tuva, but it is not significant in the more modernized (Russian) culture. Positive attitudes to innovation positively affect the experience of innovations in all three cultures. The results obtained results should be considered when planning and implementing innovations in different regions of Russia.


valuable for burns surgery; as well as preventing hypotension, it may make a difficult endotracheal intubation unnecessary.'2 It is also a good choice for many minor paediatric operations and procedures, such as intravenous cannulation on an uncooperative child, and for certain radiological investigations. Finally, it may be especially useful in ill patients for the induction of anaesthesia or for short operations on the body surface. Ketamine is easy to administer. In countries in which there are few skilled anaesthetists there will be a temptation to use ketamine widely without an anaesthetist.'3 Though ketamine has a considerable margin of safety, occasionally the airway becomes obstructed. There can be respiratory depression. A letter in this issue (p. 709) reports that, as with any other anaesthetic, the untoward can occur with little or no warning. Thus the use of ketamine does not, in any respect, reduce the need for continuous vigilance and skilled care.


Background Although it is known that patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) generally do have an increased heart rate, the effects on both mortality and non-fatal pulmonary complications are unclear. We assessed whether heart rate is associated with all-cause mortality, and non-fatal pulmonary endpoints. Methods A prospective cohort study of 405 elderly patients with COPD was performed. All patients underwent extensive investigations, including electrocardiography. Follow-up data on mortality were obtained by linking the cohort to the Dutch National Cause of Death Register and information on complications (exacerbation of COPD or pneumonia) by scrutinizing patient files of general practitioners. Multivariable cox regression analysis was performed. Results During the follow-up 132 (33%) patients died. The overall mortality rate was 50/1000 py (42–59). The major causes of death were cardiovascular and respiratory. The relative risk of all-cause mortality increased with 21% for every 10 beats/minute increase in heart rate (adjusted HR: 1.21 [1.07–1.36], p = 0.002). The incidence of major non-fatal pulmonary events was 145/1000 py (120–168). The risk of a non-fatal pulmonary complication increased non-significantly with 7% for every 10 beats/minute increase in resting heart rate (adjusted HR: 1.07 [0.96–1.18], p = 0.208). Conclusions Increased resting heart rate is a strong and independent risk factor for all-cause mortality in elderly patients with COPD. An increased resting heart rate did not result in an increased risk of exacerbations or pneumonia. This may indicate that the increased mortality risk of COPD is related to non-pulmonary causes. Future randomized controlled trials are needed to investigate whether heart-rate lowering agents are worthwhile for COPD patients.


Palladium and cerium oxide nanoparticles obtained by pulsed laser ablation (PLA) in liquid (water or ethanol) have been used as nanostructured precursors for the synthesis of composite Pd/CeO2 catalysts. The initial mixture of Pd and CeO2 nanoparticles does not show catalytic activity at temperatures lower than 100 °C. It has been found that the composites prepared by PLA in alcohol are easily activated by calcination in air at 450–600 °C, demonstrating a high level of activity at room temperature. Application of XRD, TEM and XPS reveals that laser ablation in water leads to the formation of large and well-crystallized nanoparticles of palladium and CeO2, whereas ablation in alcohol results in the formation of much smaller PdCx nanoparticles. The activation of the composites takes place due to the strong Pd–ceria interaction which occurs more easily for highly dispersed defective particles obtained in alcohol. Such an interaction implies the introduction of palladium ions into the ceria lattice with the formation of a mixed phase of PdxCe1−xO2−x−δ solid solution at the contact spaces of palladium and cerium oxide nanoparticles. TPR-CO and XPS data show clearly that on the surface of the PdxCe1−xO2−x−δ solid solution the oxidized PdOx(s)/Pd–O–Ce(s) clusters are formed. These clusters are composed of highly reactive oxygen which is responsible for the high level of catalytic activity in LTO CO.


Dyes have long been used in dyeing, paper and pulp, textiles, plastics, leather, paint, cosmetics and food industries. Nowadays, more than 100,000 commercial dyes are available with a total production of 700,000 tones manufactured all over the world annually. About 10-15% of dyes are being disposed off as a waste into the environment after dyeing process. This poses certain hazards and environmental problems. The objective of this study is to investigate the adsorption behavior of Methylene Blue (MB) from aqueous solution onto natural and acid activated Jordanian bentonite. Both bentonites are firstly characterized using XRD, FTIR and SEM techniques. Then batch adsorption experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of initial MB concentration, contact time, pH and temperature. It was found that the percentage of dye removal was improved from 75.8% for natural bentonite to reach 99.6% for acid treated bentonite. The rate of MB removal followed the pseudo second order model with a high correlation factor. The Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption models were applied to describe the equilibrium isotherms. The Langmuir isotherm model was found more representative. The results indicate that bentonite could be employed as a low cost adsorbent in wastewater treatment for the removal of colour and dyes.


Background We describe the introduction, use, and evaluation of an automation and integration pharmacy development program in a private facility in Saudi Arabia. The project was specifically undertaken to increase throughput, reduce medication dispensing error rates, improve patient satisfaction, and free up pharmacists' time to allow for increased face-to-face consultations with patients. Objective We forecasted growth of our outpatient service at 25% per annum over 5- and 10-year horizons and set out to prepare our outpatient pharmacy service to meet this demand. Initial project goals were set as a 50% reduction in the average patient wait time, a 15% increase in patient satisfaction regarding pharmacy wait time and pharmacy services, a 25% increase in pharmacist productivity, and zero dispensing errors. This was expected to be achieved within 10 months of go-live. Realignment of pharmacist activity toward counseling and medication review with patients was a secondary goal, along with the rapid development of a reputation in the served community for patient-centered care. Methods Preimplementation data for patient wait time for dispensing of prescribed medications as a specific measure of patient satisfaction was gathered as part of wider ongoing data collection in this field. Pharmacist activity and productivity in terms of patient interaction time were gathered. Reported and discovered dispensing errors per 1000 prescriptions were also aggregated. All preimplementation data was gathered over an 11-month period. Results From go-live, data were gathered on the above metrics in 1-month increments. At the 10-month point, there had been a 53% reduction in the average wait time, a 20% increase in patient satisfaction regarding pharmacy wait time, with a 22% increase in overall patient satisfaction regarding pharmacy services, and a 33% increase in pharmacist productivity. A zero dispensing error rate was reported. Conclusions The robotic pharmacy solution studied was highly effective, but a robust upstream supply chain is vital to ensure stock levels, particularly when automated filling is planned. The automation solution must also be seamlessly and completely integrated into the facility's software systems for appointments, medication records, and prescription generation in order to garner its full benefits. Overall patient satisfaction with pharmacy services is strongly influenced by wait time and follow-up studies are required to identify how to use this positive effect and make optimal use of freed-up pharmacist time. The extra time spent by pharmacists with patients and the opportunity for complete overview of the patient's medication history, which full integration provides, may allow us to address challenging issues such as medication nonadherence. Reduced wait times may also allow for smaller prescription fill volumes, and more frequent outpatient department visits, allowing patients to have increased contact time with pharmacists.


Abstract—In a previously developed fast vortex method, the diffusion of the vortex sheet induced at the solid wall by the no-slip boundary conditions was modeled according to the approximation solution of Koumoutsakos and converted into discrete blobs in the vicinity of the wall. This scheme had been successfully applied to a simulation of the flow induced with an impulsively initiated circular cylinder. In this work, further modifications on this vortex method are attempted, including replacing the approximation solution by the boundary-element-method solution, incorporating a new algorithm for handling the over-weak vortex blobs, and diffusing the vortex sheet circulation in a new way suitable for high-curvature solid bodies. The accuracy is thus largely improved. The predictions of lift and drag coefficients for a uniform flow past a NASA airfoil agree well with the existing literature.


Dynamical models of systems across many branches of science and engineering can be mathematically represented in terms of stochastic processes such as Markov chains, or deterministically through a system of difference or differential equations. Unfortunately, in all but special cases these models do not enjoy analytical solutions, hence one is left with computer-based approaches by means of stochastic simulators and numerical solvers. As a consequence, the computational cost increases with the dimensionality of the model under consideration, hindering our capability of dealing with complex large-scale models arising from accurate mechanistic descriptions of real-world systems. This paper offers an advanced tutorial on an array of recently developed algorithms that seek to tame the complexity of these models by aggregating their constituting systems of equations, leading to lower-dimensional systems that preserve the original dynamics in some appropriate, formal sense.


Machine learning (ML) techniques are increasingly common in security applications, such as malware and intrusion detection. However, ML models are often susceptible to evasion attacks, in which an adversary makes changes to the input (such as malware) in order to avoid being detected. A conventional approach to evaluate ML robustness to such attacks, as well as to design robust ML, is by considering simplified feature-space models of attacks, where the attacker changes ML features directly to effect evasion, while minimizing or constraining the magnitude of this change. We investigate the effectiveness of this approach to designing robust ML in the face of attacks that can be realized in actual malware (realizable attacks). We demonstrate that in the context of structure-based PDF malware detection, such techniques appear to have limited effectiveness, but they are effective with content-based detectors. In either case, we show that augmenting the feature space models with conserved features (those that cannot be unilaterally modified without compromising malicious functionality) significantly improves performance. Finally, we show that feature space models enable generalized robustness when faced with a variety of realizable attacks, as compared to classifiers which are tuned to be robust to a specific realizable attack.


This thesis reports six studies adopting a self-determination theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 1985) approach to understanding motivation and behaviour in health and social contexts. The research focuses on the internalisation and integration of goals and motives extrinsic to the individual and the effects of internalisation on psychological and behavioural outcomes. Two studies also explore the role of social agents in facilitating internalisation through provision of autonomy support.

The research addresses gaps in the SDT literature and contributes to the advancement of theory and practice. A meta-analysis of effects of autonomy support on health-related psychological and behavioural outcomes (Chapter 2), based on the methods of Hunter and Schmidt (1994), indicated the significance and consistency of adaptive effects of autonomy support across the literature. A path analysis was also used to test a modified representation of Williams et al.'s (2006) SDT process model of health-related behaviour. Results supported the motivational sequence postulated within the model, as the effect of autonomy support on behaviour was mediated by need satisfaction and autonomous motivation.

The studies reported in Chapters 3 and 4 make a novel contribution to the SDT health literature by employing measures of chronically-accessible physical activity outcomes and motives to represent spontaneous motivational influences on behaviour. The results presented in Chapter 3 indicated that chronically-accessible appearance-related outcomes are associated with controlling forms of motivation, while the findings reported in Chapter 4 showed that planning-based strategies to maintain physical activity under situations of success and failure in goal striving are differentially effective for chronically autonomous and controlled individuals. These studies also offer guidance for health practitioners in promoting physical activity, by highlighting the potentially maladaptive effects of appearance-related goals and the importance of tailoring planning-based interventions to individuals' chronically-accessible motives.

The study reported in Chapter 5 substantiated a core theoretical assumption of SDT by providing empirical support for people's inclination to distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic goals. Adopting methods from the literature on memory and attitudes, cluster analysis was performed on participants' self-generated and recalled physical activity goal data to determine the presence of clustering by goal type. Although findings supported individuals' ability to distinguish intrinsic and extrinsic goals at some level of representation, participants were not able to reliably code their goals at an explicit level. It was therefore concluded that differentiation between goal types may not occur consciously.

The scale-development study in Chapter 6 also supported a key tenet of SDT in establishing construct, nomological, and predictive validity of a scale measuring integrated regulation for physical activity. The factorial validity of the scale, developed through an extensive literature search, expert ratings, and confirmatory factor analyses, was supported in both a high and a lower-active sample. Consistent with predictions, latent means analysis indicated the high active sample reported significantly greater integrated regulation. The scale provides a valid and reliable tool that may be used to evaluate the process of integration following autonomy-supportive interventions in health-related contexts.

Finally, Chapter 7 details the development of a brief autonomy-supportive intervention and observational checklist system for ensuring fidelity to protocol that can be modified for use in a number of contexts requiring behaviour change. The intervention was implemented in a higher education setting over the duration of a single course module and significantly increased two autonomy-supportive teaching behaviours in postgraduate tutors. However, the intervention did not significantly increase the perceived autonomy support, self-determination, or coursework grades of the experimental tutors' students relative to the control condition, although there was a trend towards a trend towards an interaction between time and experimental condition for level of self-determination towards studying. While students in the experimental group reported an increase in self-determination over time, students within the control condition reported a decrease in self-determination between the first and second, and first and third waves of data collection.

The thesis concludes with a general discussion of findings and directions for future research and practice.


Abstract Background The endonasal transsphenoidal approach (TSA) has emerged as the preferred approach in order to treat pituitary adenoma and related sellar pathologies. The recently adopted expanded endonasal approach (EEA) has improved access to the ventral skull base whilst retaining the principles of minimally invasive surgery. Despite the advantages these approaches offer, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) rhinorrhoea remains a common complication. There is currently a lack of comparative evidence to guide the best choice of skull base reconstruction, resulting in considerable heterogeneity of current practice. This study aims to determine: (1) the scope of the methods of skull base repair; and (2) the corresponding rates of postoperative CSF rhinorrhoea in contemporary neurosurgical practice in the UK and Ireland. Methods We will adopt a multicentre, prospective, observational cohort design. All neurosurgical units in the UK and Ireland performing the relevant surgeries (TSA and EEA) will be eligible to participate. Eligible cases will be prospectively recruited over 6 months with 6 months of postoperative follow-up. Data points collected will include: demographics, tumour characteristics, operative data), and postoperative outcomes. Primary outcomes include skull base repair technique and CSF rhinorrhoea (biochemically confirmed and/or requiring intervention) rates. Pooled data will be analysed using descriptive statistics. All skull base repair methods used and CSF leak rates for TSA and EEA will be compared against rates listed in the literature. Ethics and dissemination Formal institutional ethical board review was not required owing to the nature of the study – this was confirmed with the Health Research Authority, UK. Conclusions The need for this multicentre, prospective, observational study is highlighted by the relative paucity of literature and the resultant lack of consensus on the topic. It is hoped that the results will give insight into contemporary practice in the UK and Ireland and will inform future studies.


Rural stakeholder collaborations are considered pivotal to successful rural development. In this context a growing body of micro firm related tourism research acknowledges the value of collaborative learning networks and the learning relationships that develop within. However little research reveals how micro firms learn independently in the practice of tourism development in an 'evolving learning community' context. Drawing from Lave and Wenger's (1991) community of practice perspective, this research seeks to explore the elements and relationships that influence learning in an evolving learning community (LC) in the micro firm rural tourism context. An evolving LC is defined as a group of businesses (micro firms) who collaborate with one another and other stakeholders in their community for the purpose of tourism development; in doing so they build shared meaning and learn in practice, as the community evolves from one stage to another.
A comprehensive literature review reveals key criteria which influence evolving LC structures and interrelationships. These criteria are explored through two longitudinal interpretive case studies in tourism practitioner communities in Canada and Wales. Employed research techniques comprised interviews, observation, LC communication review and reflective diary maintenance. The findings offer insights into how the catalyst, structure and leadership, learning strategies, LC resources, communication, participation and identity and boundary criteria support or impede micro firm learner autonomy and influence the evolving LC's learning dynamic. Recommendations are offered into optimised evolving LC support mechanisms at local, regional and national level; ultimately contributing to rural regional policy development in each domain.


This study investigates Australian federal politicians' expertise in and attitudes towards climate change. Telephone interviews were conducted with a sample of 26 Members of Parliament (MPs). Results of the survey, undertaken in late 2009, suggest that climate change expertise is low to moderate among MPs, and that there is no correlation between expertise in and concern about climate change. The survey reveals important differences in attitudes to climate change by party. About 40 per cent of Coalition (Liberal and National) MPs are climate change 'deniers', but no Labor Party (ALP) MPs are. ALP MPs rate climate change as the most important (with water management) out of four long-term challenges, but Coalition MPs rate it as the least important (after not only water, but also aging and defence). All ALP MPs think climate change demands urgent action, and that Australia should play a leadership role globally, but only about one-fifth of Coalition MPs does. Even those Coalition MPs who are climate change 'believers' tend to give lower importance to climate change than ALP MPs.


Although a proportion of individuals report chronic cognitive difficulties after mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), results from behavioral testing have been inconsistent. In fact, the variability inherent to the mTBI population may be masking subtle cognitive deficits. We hypothesized that this variability could be reduced by accounting for post-concussion syndrome (PCS) in the sample. Thirty-six participants with mTBI (>1 year post-injury) and 36 non-head injured controls performed information processing speed (Paced Visual Serial Addition Task, PVSAT) and working memory (n-Back) tasks. Both groups were split by PCS diagnosis (4 groups, all n = 18), with categorization of controls based on symptom report. Participants with mTBI and persistent PCS had significantly greater error rates on both the n-Back and PVSAT, at every difficulty level except 0-Back (used as a test of performance validity). There was no difference between any of the other groups. Therefore, a cognitive deficit can be observed in mTBI participants, even 1 year after injury. Correlations between cognitive performance and symptoms were only observed for mTBI participants, with worse performance correlating with lower sleep quality, in addition to a medium effect size association (falling short of statistical significance) with higher PCS symptoms, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and anxiety. These results suggest that the reduction in cognitive performance is not due to greater symptom report itself, but is associated to some extent with the initial injury. Furthermore, the results validate the utility of our participant grouping, and demonstrate its potential to reduce the variability observed in previous studies.


Attack of plants by necrotizing pathogens leads to acquired resistance to the same or other pathogens in tissues adjacent to or remotely located from the site of initial attack. We have used Arabidopsis thaliana inoculated with the incompatible pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv syringae on the lower leaves to test the induction of systemic reactions. When plants were challenged with Pseudomonas syringae pv syringae in the upper leaves, bacterial titers remained stable in those preinfected on the lower leaves. However, there was a distinct decrease in symptoms that correlated with a local and systemic increase in salicylic acid (SA) and in chitinase activity. Peroxidase activity only increased at the site of infection. No changes in catalase activity were observed, either at the local or at the systemic level. No inhibition of catalase could be detected in tissue in which the endogenous levels of SA were elevated either naturally (after infection) or artificially (after feeding SA to the roots). The activity of catalase in homogenates of A. thaliana leaves could not be inhibited in vitro by SA. SA accumulation was induced by H2O2 in leaves, suggesting a link between H2O2 from the oxidative burst commonly observed during the hypersensitive reaction and the induction of a putative signaling molecule leading to system acquired resistance.


Both embodied and symbolic accounts of conceptual organization would predict partial sharing and partial differentiation between the neural activations seen for concepts activated via different stimulus modalities. But cross-participant and cross-session variability in BOLD activity patterns makes analyses of such patterns with MVPA methods challenging. Here, we examine the effect of cross-modal and individual variation on the machine learning analysis of fMRI data recorded during a word property generation task. We present the same set of living and non-living concepts (land-mammals, or work tools) to a cohort of Japanese participants in two sessions: the first using auditory presentation of spoken words; the second using visual presentation of words written in Japanese characters. Classification accuracies confirmed that these semantic categories could be detected in single trials, with within-session predictive accuracies of 80–90%. However cross-session prediction (learning from auditory-task data to classify data from the written-word-task, or vice versa) suffered from a performance penalty, achieving 65–75% (still individually significant at p « 0.05). We carried out several follow-on analyses to investigate the reason for this shortfall, concluding that distributional differences in neither time nor space alone could account for it. Rather, combined spatio-temporal patterns of activity need to be identified for successful cross-session learning, and this suggests that feature selection strategies could be modified to take advantage of this.


OBJECT Patients with syndromic and complex craniosynostosis are characterized by the premature fusion of one or more cranial sutures. These patients are at risk for developing elevated intracranial pressure (ICP). There are several factors known to contribute to elevated ICP in these patients, including craniocerebral disproportion, hydrocephalus, venous hypertension, and obstructive sleep apnea. However, the causal mechanism is unknown, and patients develop elevated ICP even after skull surgery. In clinical practice, the occipitofrontal circumference (OFC) is used as an indirect measure for intracranial volume (ICV), to evaluate skull growth. However, it remains unknown whether OFC is a reliable predictor of ICV in patients with a severe skull deformity. Therefore, in this study the authors evaluated the relation between ICV and OFC. METHODS Eighty-four CT scans obtained in 69 patients with syndromic and complex craniosynostosis treated at the Erasmus University Medical Center-Sophia Children's Hospital were included. The ICV was calculated based on CT scans by using autosegmentation with an HU threshold < 150. The OFC was collected from electronic patient files. The CT scans and OFC measurements were matched based on a maximum amount of the time that was allowed between these examinations, which was dependent on age. A Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated to evaluate the correlations between OFC and ICV. The predictive value of OFC, age, and sex on ICV was then further evaluated using a univariate linear mixed model. The significant factors in the univariate analysis were subsequently entered in a multivariate mixed model. RESULTS The correlations found between OFC and ICV were r = 0.908 for the total group (p < 0.001), r = 0.981 for Apert (p < 0.001), r = 0.867 for Crouzon-Pfeiffer (p < 0.001), r = 0.989 for Muenke (p < 0.001), r = 0.858 for Saethre- Chotzen syndrome (p = 0.001), and r = 0.917 for complex craniosynostosis (p < 0.001). Age and OFC were significant predictors of ICV in the univariate linear mixed model (p < 0.001 for both factors). The OFC was the only predictor that remained significant in the multivariate analysis (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS The OFC is a significant predictor of ICV in patients with syndromic and complex craniosynostosis. Therefore, measuring the OFC during clinical practice is very useful in determining which patients are at risk for impaired skull growth.


The objective of this work was to experimentally determine the feasibility of using a phase change material (PCM)-based temperature control module, in conjunction with a heat spreader and thermal interface material, to improve the thermal management of a tablet computer. An experimental apparatus was designed to be representative of a tablet computer. This mock tablet was used to perform a series of transient heating and cooling experiments to compare the impact of the PCM module on the thermal response of the system. The PCM module consisted of n-eicosane encapsulated with heat-sealable laminated film forming a 2 mm thick sheet of encapsulated PCM. A full comparison, including the use of a heat spreader and a thermal interface material (TIM), was conducted at heat generation rates of 4.5 and 7 W. The temperature control module was able to reduce the mean and peak temperatures of the internal components and at a heat generation rate of 7 W it extended its operating time by 30% before it reached a critical threshold temperature.


Flåm, Anna Margrete "I need your eyes to see myself". On the inclusion of dialogues and an otherness of the other into psychology and clinical work. Explored through studies of contexts where children live with violence in close relationships. Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2018, 126 p. (JYU Dissertations ISSN 2489-9003; 7) ISBN 978-951-39-7523-4 (PDF) Diss. Violence in close relationships with children raises intriguing questions for our society. The sense making may go on in a fragile balance between possible false accusations and possible neglect of needed concerns. This study explores contexts where such concerns are at stake. From the vantage point of outlining main contributors towards a dialogical understanding of human meaning making, the study explores how this evolves when issues of child sexual abuse, violence, and maltreatment are at stake. The study examines three naturalistic settings: (1) A Norwegian university hospital's specialty mental health service for children and adolescents, including all cases (N = 20) referred in two years for treatment after sexual abuse. Data were recollected in hindsight as part of therapy of how nonabusing caregivers became aware of children's first signs. (2) A larger Norwegian public family protection service mandated to prioritize families with children and violence and its work in all such cases in one year (N = 106). Data comprised answers to semi-structured questionnaires and participatory research among all professionals. (3) A regional multi-agency, cross-professional consultation team for cases with children and violence. Data comprised analyses of the consultation process across cases over time. Together the studies illuminate a fine-tuned dialogical meaning making process in operation during all settings. Meaning making emerges as dialogically embedded and embodied. What particularly stands out as constitutive for the meaning making processes are contingencies constituted by tensions of space and time, of having a different voice, of trust, risk, and vulnerability, and of ethics intertwined inside each encounter. The knowledge connects to the contributions from the dialogical scholars. Comprehensively, a dialogical understanding makes it possible to realize how intricate it may be to differentiate when child sexual abuse, violence, and maltreatment occur and it calls for an open stance and responsive attunement for needed meaning making and alternatives to emerge.


The ancient high-level beaches of the south-west of England have long attracted notice. Paris referred some of them to blown sand; Carne and Boase mentioned the occurrence of similar phenomena around the coast of Cornwall. Godwin-Austen described a "raised beach" at Hope's Nose, and later on, in his paper on the superficial accumulations of the coasts of the English Channel, gave an account of several other deposits in different localities, which seemed to him to indicate an elevation of the coast-line. The position of many of these beaches is indicated by Greenough on his geological map and by De la Beche on the maps of the Geological Survey. Among the raised beaches we generally find included the sandcliffs of Saunton Down and Middle Borough, on the coast west of Barnstaple. These deposits have a further interest attached to them from the occurrence at their base of large boulders of various kinds of rock, some of which, it would seem, do not exactly resemble any rock-masses in the drainage-areas from which they could have been transported to where they are now found by any kind of river-action. Sedgwick, Murchison, Williams, and De la Beche have described these cliffs, pointing out the similarity of the deposits to those of the modern shore, and, assuming that the whole was an ancient beach, of course explained itz present position by changes in the relative level of land and sea. It seems to have been generally spoken of as a Raised Beach from the time


While policies for responding climate change impacts need the support and cooperation from the public who may be affected by the policies, understanding the general public's opinion is important and can help form feasible action plans. In this paper we take advantage of a temperature event that took place during primary data collection to explore how this affects public opinion about helping farmers adapt to climate change. We find that the public is surprisingly supportive of government involvement in farmer adaptation, and that the warm spell has a brief positive effect on support. For several years until 2011, there was a trend of declining belief in the existence and seriousness of climate change. In 2012, belief in climate change bounced back and meanwhile for several months in that year the monthly average temperatures were record highs. While it is reasonable to hypothesize that contemporaneous weather may influence the public's attitudes about addressing climate change issues, it is unclear how temperature affects public attitudes. There are gaps in existing research about the determinants of public attitudes towards climate change. How public attitudes towards adaptation policy, especially with respect to a government's intervention aimed at improving prospects for a particular industry sector, is influenced under unusual weather events, are rarely discussed. Until very recently, researchers have not explored how public opinion is influenced by climate change phenomenon per se, especially periods abnormally warm temperature. Prior articles discuss the effect of temperature with certain limitations, including perception of temperature rather than actual temperature, general temperature rather than deviations from normal status, and either short run or relatively long run average temperature to represent the temperature when the survey was taken rather than the temperature of the day when the respondent answered the survey. Another missing issue among climate change surveys is the public's opinion on adaptation policies, although many have discussed ideas surrounding that of mitigation policies. As Palutikof, Agnew and Hoar indicated in their work, "…none of these studies addressed people's responses and adaptations." How the general public thinks about adaptation strategies and policies is seldom considered. Similar to studies about public opinion, we found little research regarding how willingness to pay (WTP) for adaptation policies or strategies is influenced by specific climate change phenomenon. None of the research considered the WTP for an adaptation policy in reference to a particular industry or addressed the effect of abnormal warm temperature. Since agriculture is likely to be one of the most affected industries under climate change, with potentially serious global food availability issues if climate change outpaces the rate of adaptation, understanding public support for government involvement in adaptation and the public's WTP to fund such efforts can inform policy dialogue about these critical questions. Therefore, we focus on adaptation in agriculture to explore public opinion toward government involvement in helping the sector adapt as well as the WTP for an adaptation policy. We use the data based on a random sample general population poll in Michigan, secondary sources, and an unseasonal fruit-crop damaging warm spell that occurred during the survey period to assess the effects of this short-term phenomenon on public attitudes and the WTP. Temperatures during the two-week warm spell went as high as 40° F above normal Considered as a natural experiment, this unexpected warm spell provided variation of daily temperature deviation and variation of the exposure of this abnormal temperature when respondents were surveyed. Thus, in addition to the daily temperature deviation, as well as its accumulation for a short period (3 days, a week, etc.), several time period index variables are used to explore how the level of the respondents' exposure to the warm spell would affect the attitudes and WTP. The basic set up is before-within-after warm spell, and we test several variations of time modeling approaches to explore the duration of the effect. Demographic variables and political ideology are used to control selection bias. While it is unable to control in our data set, we consider the effect due to media coverage of the warm spell as an indirect effect and part of the priming mechanism. We constructed four questions to understand how attitudes about government adaptation assistance vary across levels of government (state or national) and crop types (corn-soybeans or fruits-vegetables) since climate change is an issue which has national and worldwide impacts but agricultural production techniques are more localized. In addition to the questions about government assistance, the instrument also included single-bounded dichotomous choice questions to evaluate the WTP for government-sponsored adaptation programs. Given the contentious nature of climate change, it was surprising to find that around two thirds of the respondents showed a tendency to support the idea of the governments' role helping farmers of either corn/soybeans or fruit/vegetables adjust their cropping systems. This could be due to the warm spell or the fact that we focus on agriculture, where the public may more easily connect changes in weather with the need to adapt than might be the case with other sectors. Results from the basic models confirm several of our hypotheses. Abnormally warm temperature deviation does affect the public attitude toward government's role on adaptation significantly. So does the variables of sub-periods or exposure of warm spell. However, the WTP is only affected significantly by these time period index variables while the temperature deviation is not significant. In other words, there appears to be a kind of tipping point beyond which further increases in deviation do not make much difference. From the preliminary results, we found that, the public attitudes about whether government should be involved in the adaptation are quite sensitive to short run temperature anomalies. The warm spell effect boosted the support, but it did not last long and quickly dropped back to the pre-event level or lower level merely on the second week of the warm spell. In addition, temperature anomalies may lead to more polarized public attitudes. We also found that the support is higher while the question specified the agriculture industry than in the general question without mentioning specific industry. The importance of local agriculture production had certain but more muted influence than our a priori expectations. Our research focuses on the agriculture industry, adaptation policies, as well as the WTP. The three key dimensions distinguish this paper from prior work. Our research further identifies the effect of the unusual warm spell event by various means. This paper shows how the warm spell event influenced the public attitudes toward climate change adaptation policy regarding two government levels and two crop types and the WTP for government-sponsored adaptation programs. The effects of daily or cumulated temperature deviation as well as the level of exposure to the warm spell will be discussed.


This paper reviews various techniques and ideas in the field of integrated optics in silicon, mainly focused on silicon in conjunction with germanium. We will discuss different approaches for waveguides, passive and active components in silicon as well as recent developments in the fabrication and performance of such components. For waveguides in silicon, the characteristics such as losses and spot-sizes are given, showing that silicon could be an attractive candidate for integrated optical devices.


This study addresses two related research questions concerning a new requirement in the United Kingdom that auditors disclose the materiality thresholds they apply when conducting the audit of listed companies. First, are cross-sectional differences in materiality thresholds associated with differences in the demands of financial statement users for high quality information as reflected by differences in analyst following, leverage, and managerial equity stakes? We find that the firm's reliance on debt financing and the extent of insider shareholding are associated with lower auditor materiality thresholds. Second, do investors use the materiality threshold information when assessing the reliability of earnings for equity valuation purposes? We find that the difference between the earnings multiples of high and low materiality firms decreases after the disclosure of the thresholds. This finding is consistent with low materiality firms benefiting from the revelation that auditors apply a more stringent threshold, thereby improving the perceived relative reliability of their financial statements.


Background: The clinical parameters for the suspicion of Clostridium difficile infections, namely the use of antimicrobials and diarrhea, have a low predictive value for the diagnosis. Aim: To search other clinical variables and determine a clinical prediction model for (Clostridium difficile diarrhea. Patients and methods: All patients to whom a Clostridium difficile study was requested, were prospectively studied during 5 months. Clinical variables of these patients were registered. The diagnosis of Clostridium difficile was done using the cytotoxicity test in fibroblast cultures. Results: Ninety two patients were analyzed and in 26, the diagnosis of Clostridium difficile was confirmed. A logistic regression model disclosed an age over 60 years old, the presence of mucus in the stools and a temperature over 37.8 °C in the previous 24 h, as significant predictors of the infection. The correlation of the model, between the predicted probability and the observed condition, was 81.5%. Conclusions: The presence of the clinical variables identified in this study are associated with a high probability of an infection by Clostridium difficile in patients with diarrhea and the recent use of antimicrobials (Rev Med Chile 2001; 129: 620-625)


This study investigates the roles of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) and explicit knowledge in explaining the posited advantage of previous language experience in L3 learning, as well as the potential role of amount of L2 exposure in modulating these relationships. We examine a unique L2-L3 language pairing, Arabic and Latin respectively, among native speakers of English. Like Sanz, Park, and Lado (2015), we employ Bates and MacWhinney's (1989) Competition Model (CM), a functional-typological framework that allows for the examination of learners' usage of language-specific cues in sentence processing. We build on this previous work by additionally investigating (1) whether there is a relationship between amount of classroom experience studying L2 Arabic and reliance on Arabic cues when learning L3 Latin, and (2) whether accuracy in L3 Latin is correlated with explicit knowledge of Latin cues and whether learners with more L2 Arabic experience are more likely to develop such explicit knowledge. Thirtyfive native English-speaking learners of Arabic at three different levels completed computer-based training and testing tasks dealing with thematic role assignment in Latin following a pretest, posttest, delayed posttest design as well as a test of explicit knowledge of Latin cues. We show that learners in the early stages of L3 development start with an L1-based strategy (SVO word order), replicating the findings in Sanz, Park, and Lado (2015). We add to these results evidence that with more exposure participants showed increased accuracy on items requiring the use of Latin cues present in their L2 Arabic but not in their L1 English (i.e., subject-verb agreement and case). Importantly, there was emergent evidence that this increase in accuracy was mitigated by amount of Arabic experience. In addition, L3 explicit knowledge was a significant predictor of Latin performance and was also related to level of L2 experience. These results suggest that amount of L2 exposure may mediate CLI in L3 acquisition, and add to a growing body of evidence showing an important role for explicit knowledge in adult language learning, at least among classroom learners. Keywords: cross-linguistic influence; third language acquisition; morphosyntactic transfer; Competition Model; agency assignment; explicit knowledge; exposure


In recent decades, Sri Lanka has recorded one of the highest rates of suicide in the world. Its rate of female suicide is second only to China. Suicides and acts of self-harm are concentrated in rural areas and among economically disadvantaged groups. Many occur in the context of family disputes and other conflicts with intimates. They are largely unpremeditated and driven by feelings of anger, humiliation, frustration, and desire to strike back against wrongful treatment. This article describes the social ecology of young women's suicide in Sri Lanka, its cultural meanings, and the relational dynamics involved. Implications of the cultural, ecological, and psychological factors are discussed, with recommendations for counselors and human service workers.


Advances in digital technology have provided new opportunities for historical activism, particularly through the collaborative channels of cyberspace. This article examines transgender historical activism on the Internet by identifying three types of worldmaking projects that respond to nonexistent or impoverished historical record keeping. With the affordances of cyberspace, transgender worldmaking invites collaborative, innovative, experimental, and politically charged historical projects that enact alternative ways of engaging with history and historical representation.


This express brief deals with the memristor-based Chua's circuit. For the first time, the fractional-order model for such system is presented. A numerical solution of the fractional-order memristor-based Chua's equations is derived for simulations. The dynamical behavior and stability analysis of this system are described and investigated as well.


Abstract Ventilation tube (VT) insertion is an accepted treatment for chronic otitismedia with effusion (OME) in children. One hundred and eighty five children with bilateral OME were treated by unilateral myringotomy and VT insertion with no treatment to the contralateral ear. During a 5 year follow-up 95 of the children required only one VT but the remainer required more than one but always treatment was carried out to the same ear. The rate of development of tympanosclerosis was measured and scored. After 2–3 yearsthe extent of the sclerotic changes stabilised and the rate of development reached 37–39 per cent in ears receiving only one VT, compared with 47–49 per cent in ears treated by more than one tube. The extent of the changes was no different whether or not one or more than one tube had been inserted. There was no overall evidence of resolution of sclerotic change with time.


Abstract Drying behaviour of sawdust mixture was investigated in a convective dryer at 0.01 m/s and 25, 60, and 150°C air temperature. Sawdust mixture (60% of spruce and 40% of the second ingredient: beech, willow, ash, alder) and sawdust of spruce, beech, willow, alder and ash was used in the drying experiments. The sawdust mixture drying was affected by the drying of its ingredients. The experimental drying data were fitted to the theoretical, semi–theoretical, and empirical thin-layer models. The accuracies of the models were measured using the correlation coefficient, root mean square error, and reduced chi–square. All semi-theoretical and empirical models described the drying characteristics of sawdust mixture satisfactorily. The theoretical model of a sphere predicts the drying of sawdust mixture better than the theoretical model of an infinite plane. The effect of the composition of the sawdust mixture on the drying models parameters were also taken into account.


Entering the 21st century, the company no longer focuses on the expertise that employees have, but rather on optimizing the quality and function, as well as the positive work experience that employees have. This current situation shows that happiness is one of the important issues that need to be considered especially in the world environment. Happiness in the work place refers to employee satisfaction with their works and lives (Wesarat, Sharif & Majid, 2015).Employees who feel the happiness at work tend to focus more on their work and increase their productivities. Happiness at work is influenced by job satisfaction, job engagement, workplace security, managing stress and self-confidence. Furthermore, this paper will have a review of definitions, factors that influence happiness, the importance of happiness in the workplace and exposure to some of the results of previous research both outside and in Indonesia so that it can be an input for further research, remembering happiness is an important domain especially in life in the work environment.


Data collected through COUNTER usage statistics and the LibQUAL+ service quality assessment survey tell us that faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates value access to the growing e-book collection at Columbia University Libraries (CUL). While the aggregate results indicate that e-book use continues to increase, usage rates are not uniform across disciplines. Anecdotal evidence suggests that while e-book use has grown in the sciences and social sciences, scholars in the arts and humanities rely heavily on print books. Given the highly diverse research needs of the university community, CUL is keen to understand scholarly e-book usage in various disciplines. In this study, we sought an innovative research method to understand e-book usage. This method utilizes data from two sources: readers' e-book search terms harvested by Google Analytics; and requested e-book titles provided by the COUNTER e-book usage reports. The data was analyzed using NVivo, a qualitative analysis software, to examine popular scholarly e-book topics and the correlation between search and delivery.


Students who are well prepared for laboratory classes are more likely to successfully acquire laboratory skills and gain the maximum possible benefit from the laboratory learning environment. To facilitate effective student preparation and improve their learning outcomes, we have designed and developed an online resource centre. These resources are used by students in conjunction with traditional resources including the laboratory manual prior to attendance in laboratories. Resources comprise a series of web based activities including visual and audio presentations, pre-laboratory questions and quizzes related to the laboratory activities that the students will complete. To determine how effective these resources were in facilitating laboratory preparation, students were surveyed both before and after the introduction of the resources. Surveys were designed to establish student perceptions regarding their preparatory practices. In addition, the effect on some measurable learning outcomes was established. This paper reports on how the implementation of this blended learning approach has improved the nature of student preparation practices. Presenting information in a flexible learning format, prior to participation, enhanced student familiarisation with theoretical and experimental procedures. Thus facilitated preparation reduced the potential risk of cognitive dissonance by improving student organisational abilities which in turn lead to better experimental learning outcomes and value-added student perception of the laboratory experience as a whole.


Severe asthma is defined as a condition which can result in risk of frequent severe exacerbations (or death), adverse reactions to medication, and/or chronic morbidity, despite maximal therapy. Although patients with severe asthma represent only 5-10% of the asthmatic population, they represent the major burden of illness and impairment of Quality of Life (QoL), constituting a real clinical challenge for pulmonary physicians. Omalizumab, a humanised monoclonal antibody which binds free immunoglobulin E (IgE) in the serum, has demonstrated to be effective as add-on therapy to improve asthma control in adults and children with severe persistent allergic asthma that is uncontrolled by standard drug treatment. Our review discusses the efficacy and safety of omalizumab and offers practical recommendations for its use in patients with severe asthma.


In the supply chain realm, an information system plays a crucial role in defining its capacity and efficiency. As the supply chain itself evolves constantly due to strategical or tactical business optimisations from supply chain participants, information system planners experience tremendous challenges in defining cost-effective and flexible supply chain information systems to align with existing and forthcoming supply chain changes. The principal challenging question is how much the supply chain management system will cost against the functions delivered. In many cases, computer system planners rely on software suppliers' quotations solely to estimate the supply chain system cost. However, a quotation hardly suggests the precise total cost due to lack of understanding or information of the particular implementation. Apart from this reason, there are usually various hidden costs that are relevant to the users only, such as unplanned changes. These costs will certainly not be reflected on the quotations. A practical supply chain management system cost estimation method is therefore indispensable to the system planners.This research is an attempt towards estimating the supply chain information system cost at the early stage by synthesising resource constraints of budget, time, implementation scheme and developing team. A temporal cost estimation model is proposed to facilitate effective operational decision making on supply chain management system practices, in regard to the high supply chain uncertainty. With the mathematical cost model in place, analytical researches are performed to complete the knowledge base that a supply chain management system planner would need. Finally, the model strengths and weaknesses are reviewed for reference and future improvements.


The aim of this work is to evaluate the influence of the long-term lead-poisoning on children's health, achieved education level and social maturity in their youth and adult life. The work is based on the material collected in the Environmental Health Outpatient Clinic in Piekary Slaskie. The researches were carried out on the base of a questionnaire filled in by adults who had the average lead concentration in blood of 27.4 micrograms/dl +/- 9.8 micrograms/dl when they were 7-15 years old in the period of 1986-1989. All examined subjects were inhabitants of Piekary Slaskie since their birth. The questionnaires were submitted to 90 persons but only 36 responded. There were at the age of 16-26 having the technical, secondary or academic education. Statistical significance was stated only in the field of interdependence between the education level of parents of the surveyed group and the grades achieved by the subjects in primary school. No statistical significance was shown when comparing the lead concentration in blood in children aged 7-15 and education level achieved during next 10 years of their life, their health condition at the age of 16-26 and other parameters. The parents of the surveyed group (with high lead concentration in blood at the age of 7-15) have been the inhabitants of Piekary Slaskie since their birth. Therefore we can make a presumption about the double-generation environmental influence of lead concentration on the grades achieved in primary school by the surveyed persons.


Technology continues to make great strides in society by providing opportunities for advancement, inclusion, and global competency. As new systems and tools arise, novel applications are created as well.

Smart Technology Applications in Business Environments is an essential reference source for the latest scholarly research on the risks and opportunities of utilizing the latest technologies in different aspects of society such as education, healthcare systems, and corporations. Featuring extensive coverage on a broad range of topics and perspectives including virtual reality, robotics, and social media, this publication is ideally designed for academicians, researchers, students, and practitioners seeking current research on the improvement and increased productivity from the implementation of smart technologies.


B-type natriuretic peptide and N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide – Diagnostic role in stable coronary artery disease. Exp Clin Cardiol 2006;11(2):99-101. B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) and its N-terminal fragment (NT-proBNP) are released from ventricular cardiomyocytes in response to an increase in ventricular wall stress and to myocardial ischemia. Both BNP and NT-proBNP have proven to be reliable diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers in patients with heart failure. Recently, the diagnostic roles of BNP and NT-proBNP in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) have been investigated. For patients with acute coronary syndromes, data have been derived from a great number of studies, whereas in patients with stable CAD, only a limited amount of recent data is available; although limited, these data show that elevations in BNP and NT-proBNP levels are associated with the extent of CAD, thus providing prognostic information for an unfavourable clinical outcome. However, clinical and therapeutic implications are indistinct and need to be elucidated in further studies.


Pan-STARRS1 has carried out a set of distinct synoptic imaging sky surveys including the $3\pi$ Steradian Survey and the Medium Deep Survey in 5 bands ($grizy_{P1}$). The mean 5$\sigma$ point source limiting sensitivities in the stacked 3$\pi$ Steradian Survey in $grizy_{P1}$ are (23.3, 23.2, 23.1, 22.3, 21.4) respectively. The upper bound on the systematic uncertainty in the photometric calibration across the sky is 7-12 millimag depending on the bandpass. The systematic uncertainty of the astrometric calibration using the Gaia frame comes from a comparison of the results with Gaia: the standard deviation of the mean and median residuals ($ \Delta ra, \Delta dec $) are (2.3, 1.7) milliarcsec, and (3.1, 4.8) milliarcsec respectively. The Pan-STARRS system and the design of the PS1 surveys are described and an overview of the resulting image and catalog data products and their basic characteristics are described together with a summary of important results. The images, reduced data products, and derived data products from the Pan-STARRS1 surveys are available to the community from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) at STScI.


Correspondence: Mark Tuthill Department of Medical Oncology, Hammersmith Hospital, imperial College National Health Service Trust, Ducane Rd, London, w12 0HS, UK Tel +44 208 383 1000 Fax +44 207 6039679 email email@example.com Abstract: More than 25,000 hematopoietic stem cell transplantations (HSCTs) are performed each year for the treatment of lymphoma, leukemia, immune-deficiency illnesses, congenital metabolic defects, hemoglobinopathies, and myelodysplastic and myeloproliferative syndromes. Before transplantation, patients receive intensive myeloablative chemoradiotherapy followed by stem cell "rescue." Autologous HSCT is performed using the patient's own hematopoietic stem cells, which are harvested before transplantation and reinfused after myeloablation. Allogeneic HSCT uses human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-matched stem cells derived from a donor. Survival after allogeneic transplantation depends on donor–recipient matching, the graft-versus-host response, and the development of a graft versus leukemia effect. This article reviews the biology of stem cells, clinical efficacy of HSCT, transplantation procedures, and potential complications.


Molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) thin films and surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensing technologies were combined to develop a novel sensing platform for monitoring real-time theophylline concentration, which is a compound of interest in environmental monitoring and a molecular probe for phenotyping certain cytochrome P450 enzymes. The MIPs hydrogel is easy to synthesize and provides shape-selective recognition with high affinity to specific target molecules. Different polymerization formulas were tested and optimized. The influence of the monomer sensitive factors were addressed by SPR. SPR is an evanescent wave optics based sensing technique that is suitable for real-time and label free sensing purposes. Gold nanorods (Au NRs) were uniformly immobilized onto a SPR sensing surface for the construction of a fiber optics based prism-free localized SPR (LSPR) measurement. This technique can be also applied to assess the activities of other small organic molecules by adjusting the polymerization formula, thus, this approach also has many other potential applications.


This paper investigates some crucial aspects of the recent development of industrial districts in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, where this type of spatial agglomeration of industrial firms has flourished since the period immediately after the Second World War. In particular, it is aimed at comparing the technological strength (in terms of patents registered with the European Patent Office) of innovative firms located within and outside industrial districts, in order to determine whether the prediction that innovative activity favors those firms or industries with direct access to knowledge producing inputs applies also to the case of industrial districts in the Emilia-Romagna region. The analysis deals with the population of firms with their headquarters in the region which registered at least one patent with the European Patent Office during the 1986-1995 period. Results from panel model estimates show that being located within an industrial district resulted in a technological advantage during the overall 1986-1995 period. However, on breaking down this period into two sub-periods (1986-1990 and 1991-1995) it is found that such advantage was strong in the first one, whereas it was lost in the first half of the 1990s.


The paper is concerned with the results of morphological and biochemical studies of the duodenum and ileum in young rabbits with salmonellosis. It was shown that all the parts of the small intestine were involved into the pathological process. Enzymopathy developed in the presence of acute catarrhal inflammation and erosive enteritis accompanied by ulceration of necrotized lymph follicles of Peyer's patches of the small intestine. The activity of maltase and alkaline phosphatase was found to be most vulnerable. Of crucial significance in the development of diarrhea in experimental young rabbits were pronounced morphological alterations and derangement of enzyme-forming function in the small intestine.


The paper deals with the analysis of local fuzzy observers for nonlinear plants. The plant is approximated by a TS fuzzy model for which a local linear fuzzy observer is designed. This type of fuzzy observer reconstructs the non-measurable states if the parameters of the locally linearized plant are given. Matched uncertainties in the plant model can be eliminated by an additional nonlinear fuzzy sliding mode observer. Conditions are given under which the combination of the linear and the nonlinear observer lead to a reconstruction of non-measurable states.


The ever increasing mobile data traffic and dense deployment of wireless networks have made energy efficient radio access imperative. As networks are designed to satisfy peak user demands, radio access energy can be reduced in a number of ways at times of lower demand. This includes putting base stations (BSs) to intermittent short sleep modes during low load, as well as adaptively powering down select BSs completely where demand is low for prolonged time periods. In order to fully exploit such energy conserving mechanisms, networks should be aware of the user temporal and spatial traffic demands. To this end, this article investigates the potential of utilizing predictions of user location and application information as a means to energy saving. We discuss the development of a predictive green wireless access (PreGWA) framework and identify its key functional entities and their interaction. To demonstrate the potential energy savings we then provide a case study on stored video streaming and illustrate how exploiting predictions can minimize BS resource consumption within a single cell, and across a network of cells. Finally, to emphasize the practical potential of PreGWA, we present a distributed heuristic that reduces resource consumption significantly without requiring considerable information or signaling overhead.


In the present study, the effect of laser surface melting (LSM) on microstructure of AZ91D magnesium alloy was investigated with a 2kW continuous wave CO2 laser. The results indicate that both the substrate and laser melted layer mainly consisted of α-Mg and β-Mg17Al12, the amount of β-phase in laser melted layer was decreased as compared to that of the substrate. The microstructure of the laser surface melted zone consists of fine dendrites with an average grain size of less than 10m, the grain size was reduced by a factor of more than 10 times as compared to that of the substrate. The micro-hardness of the melted layer was increased to 70–85HV as compared to that of the substrate (about 53HV). Because of the grain refinement, the enhancement of the hard phase β-Mg17Al12, and the solid solution hardening of alloy elements, the micro-hardness and strength of the laser melted layer was increased significantly.


In India, Gulf of Mannar, Gulf of Kuteh, Palk Bay, Lakshadweep and Bay islands are the important areas having considerable natural
resources along the 6 100 km long coast line of the country.
About 680 species of seaweeds belonging to the groups Chlorophyta, Phaeophyta, Rhodophyta and Cyanophyta occur naturally in
varying degrees of abundance in shallow bays, lagoons and coastal areas which offer suitable substrata for their growth and
propagation.
Apart from their utility as a source of food, food derivatives, vitamins, proteins, etc., seaweeds provide the raw material for many agar
and algin-based industries. The exploitation of carrageenophytes such as species of Hypnea, Acanthophora, Laurencia, etc. has yet to
make a beginning in the country as these are available in sizeable quantities.
In view of the constant demand for the seaweeds, research programmes on seaweed resources and their culture were taken up by the
Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, and Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute at Mandapam at their Regional
and Field Centre, respectively, and various other research organizations belonging to the State Fisheries Departments/Universities. As
regards sea-weed farming, experiments were mainly carried out on species of Ulva, Gelidiella
acerosa, Gracilaria edulis, Gracilaria corticata, Gelidiopsis variabilis, Gelidium pusillum, Hypnea musiformis, Acanthophora spicifera,
Hormophysa triquetra, Cystoseira sp. and species of Sargassum.


Flight simulator is a complex man-in-the-loop (MIL) simulation system. With several decades of development, it has already become important tools of aircraft design and development, and necessary means of pilot training. And simulation credibility and reliability of the flight simulator have been considerably improved in comparison with the past. However, the system of flight simulator has become increasingly complex and difficult to be described clearly. This paper presents the concepts of conceptual layer and achieving layer, analyzes the composition and principle of the commercial aircraft flight simulator for pilot training from the two layers, describes the system architecture in detail. According to the system architecture, three aspects are very important to develop the flight simulator, the first is the fidelity of the simulation models, the second is the performance of cueing devices, and the last are the computing capacity of the host computers and the time delay over the communication networks.