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Introduction: To determine the impact of a head-referenced cochlear implant (CI) stimulation system, BalanCI, on balance and postural control in children with bilateral cochleovestibular loss (BCVL) who use bilateral CI. Methods: Prospective, blinded case-control study. Balance and postural control testing occurred in two settings: (1) quiet clinical setting and (2) immersive realistic virtual environment (Challenging Environment Assessment Laboratory [CEAL], Toronto Rehabilitation Institute). Postural control was assessed in 16 and balance in 10 children with BCVL who use bilateral CI, along with 10 typically developing children. Children with neuromotor, cognitive, or visual deficits that would prevent them from performing the tests were excluded. Children wore the BalanCI, which is a head-mounted device that couples with their CIs through the audio port and provides head-referenced spatial information delivered via the intracochlear electrode array. Postural control was measured by center of pressure (COP) and time to fall using the WiiTM (Nintendo, WA, USA) Balance Board for feet and the BalanCI for head, during the administration of the Modified Clinical Test of Sensory Interaction in Balance (CTSIB-M). The COP of the head and feet were assessed for change by deviation, measured as root mean square around the COP (COP-RMS), rate of deviation (COP-RMS/duration), and rate of path length change from center (COP-velocity). Balance was assessed by the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency 2, balance subtest (BOT-2), specifically, BOT-2 score as well as time to fall/fault. Results: In the virtual environment, children demonstrated more stable balance when using BalanCI as measured by an improvement in BOT-2 scores. In a quiet clinical setting, the use of BalanCI led to improved postural control as demonstrated by significant reductions in COP-RMS and COP-velocity. With the use of BalanCI, the number of falls/faults was significantly reduced and time to fall increased. Conclusions: BalanCI is a simple and effective means of improving postural control and balance in children with BCVL who use bilateral CI. BalanCI could potentially improve the safety of these children, reduce the effort they expend maintaining balance and allow them to take part in more complex balance tasks where sensory information may be limited and/or noisy.

Mapping vehicle surroundings using an occupancy grid is commonly a performance bottleneck in many automotive applications. In particular, three dimensional map generation becomes extremely complex because of the additional degree of freedom that significantly increases the amount of occupancy grid cells to be examined. In this work, we present a novel way to speed up generation of volumetric occupancy grids, by approximating heavy calculations and utilizing efficient data structures. Our proposed method produces a IS-fold speedup in a high-resolution mode and demonstrates realtime performance, without discernible impact on the accuracy. A description of the algorithm and the data structures is provided. The algorithm is tested on a multi-sensor system in a challenging environment. Moreover, our design is portable and could suit many platforms, including embedded automotive hardware.

The shallow ocean is a dynamically changing medium leading to nonstationary statistical behavior when subjected to temperature, wind, surface variations, bottom interactions, noise and extraneous disturbances as well as other conditions that render it a uniquely challenging environment — especially from a signal processing perspective. Processors must account for and adapt to such instantaneous changes in order to be effective. In this paper, we develop a parametrically adaptive, sequential Bayesian processor capable of jointly estimating both modal functions and environmental parameters to provide enhanced estimates for a focused optimizer capable locating a target in the noisy shallow ocean environment.

Small RNAs represent a class of small but powerful agents that regulate development and abiotic and biotic stress responses during plant adaptation to a constantly challenging environment. Previous findings have revealed the important roles of small RNAs in diverse cellular processes. The recent discovery of bidirectional trafficking of small RNAs between different kingdoms has raised many interesting questions. The subsequent demonstration of exosome-mediated small RNA export provided a possible tool for further investigating how plants use small RNAs as a weapon during the arms race between plant hosts and pathogens. This review will focus on discussing the roles of small RNAs in plant immunity in terms of three aspects: the biogenesis of extracellular small RNAs and the transportation and trafficking small RNA-mediated gene silencing in pathogens.

In the 1980s, prostitution resurfaced as the object of feminist politics as second-wave activists grappled with Thatcherism, prostitute rights, tenant activism, anti-violence movements, and changes in the street sex trade and in policing. These conflicting imperatives converged on King's Cross, London. Events in King's Cross highlight some general trends, especially shifts in policing and in the geographic dispersal of the street sex trade. King's Cross also possessed singular features. It was the epicentre of street prostitution in London and the destination for hundreds of northern women migrating to the metropolis to sell sex. Intensified policing of the street trade provoked a heated neighbourhood dispute between council tenants and a media-savvy prostitute rights group. The year 1982 also marked a new configuration in local politics: the control of Camden Council by Labour Left and the formation of the Camden Women's Committee. In this challenging environment, newly elected municipal feminists in Camden set out to devise a feminist practice around prostitution. They found themselves embroiled in local disputes over public space, gender justice, policing, municipal progressivism, and resident action.

The role of information technology in each company is very influential in providing complete and accurate information. With a data warehouse or data mart the company can utilize important asset data to present the information needed.. Shipping firms nowadays are in operation with extremely competitive and challenging environment. Vast volume of knowledge is generated from various operational systems and these are used for determination of several business issues that needed imperative handling. The results obtained from this study are data marts that simplify and accelerate the provision of data and information to support decision making, so as to provide a basis for developing DSS and EIS applications. Conclusions obtained by the data warehouse or data mart can provide complete, accurate and integrated information as a basis for consideration for the executive in making decisions so that decisions taken are based on real facts owned by the company.

Innovativeness / creativity are key for organizational health. Since the technological developments mostly eliminated the complex business models, organizations are easily copying the models from each other. In such a challenging environment, organizations should create difference. There are multiple ways of creating differences but the most sustainable way is to create organization culture based on innovation and creativity. This study aimed to examine the relation between leader-member exchange (LMX) and innovativeness with the moderating role of Psychological Capital. Structured survey questions addressed to 157 employees of different companies in Turkey to gather the research data.

The advent of on-line degree programs has proved to be both a rewarding and challenging environment for graduate studies. In particular, teaching applied electromagnetic theory is a complex undertaking when the in-class interaction is removed. This presentation will outline some techniques used by the author to teach EM theory and applied EM theory applied to antennas. An overview of the Blackboard tool will be presented as will the structure of the classes.

Expedition medicine in Antarctica requires a broad spectrum of clinical competencies ranging from resuscitation medicine and trauma care to treating minor illness, safety awareness and safety induction. It remains a challenging environment to practise as a single unassisted physician is required to assess, acutely treat (medications, procedures) and complete follow-up consultation.

This article presents the historical evidence concerning the occurrence of drought in North America from 1510–1610CE based on a comprehensive review of original written records concerning all early European expeditions into the present US and Canada. It compares this evidence from the archives of societies with maps and time series of drought generated from the tree ring-based North American Drought Atlas (NADA). This comparison demonstrates the reliability of early colonial historical records as sources of evidence concerning drought, as well as the applicability of the NADA to the scale of local and regional human historical events. The comparison further verifies the occurrence and societal impacts of certain major droughts previously identified in dendroclimatological studies, but suggests that some summer hydrological deficits indicated in the tree ring record reflect a deficiency of summer rather than winter precipitation. Finally, this review of evidence from both the archives of societies and archives of nature highlights the extraordinary challenges faced by early European explorers and colonists in North America due to climatic variability in an already unfamiliar and challenging environment.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence regarding the contributions of ambidextrous workforces as a source of value for dynamic companies and organizations facing emerging market turbulence. Design/methodology/approach Using structural equation modeling, the paper analyses the data collected via a semi-structured questionnaire administered to a sample of 1,227 employees from 37 Italian small- to medium-sized enterprises to investigate the effect on companies’ economic performance of ambidextrous workforce-related elements such as study background, previous work experience, work flexibility and soft capabilities. Findings The research shows that multidisciplinary human resources’ study background, previous human resources’ work experience and human resources’ soft capabilities are positively linked to companies’ return on sales, providing indirect evidence about the role of ambidextrous workforces in supporting companies facing emerging market turbulence. Originality/value The research demonstrates the relevant role of human resources in supporting companies to better align themselves to the emerging social and economic variety.

Homography estimation is one of the important ways to calculate the transformation between images. For most embedded terminal devices, an efficient and robust homography estimation algorithm is extremely necessary. In this paper, we design an innovative compressed convolutional neural network to estimate homographies which work very well. The model size of the network is less than 10 MB, which is small enough to be used on mobile devices. In addition, to improve the estimated accuracy in challenging environment, we present a novel loss function to train our network. Finally, we compare our algorithm with traditional methods and other learning-based methods. Experiments on our compressed network demonstrate that the innovative network achieves better accuracy compared to other learning-based algorithms, and is more robust to illumination changes compared to traditional algorithms.

Serious games can be used as a way to transmit knowledge to the users/students, playing the role of a pedagogical tool in their learning process. Following this idea, a serious game on Statistics is developed for higher education level, promoting and demonstrating the applicability of statistics concepts in day-to-day life and in the decision-making process. The proposed idea is to create a challenging environment (mystery that needs to be solved), where the clues are contextualized in the statistics area through the practice of probability knowledge, confidence intervals and hypotheses tests. According to the student’s answers and choices, the game branches out leading the player to different activities/challenges, guaranteeing that, by the end of the game, the student has a better understanding of the subject. In the present paper, the storyboard and the student competencies are presented and discussed, focusing on the project’s main objectives., The authors would like to express their acknowledgments to COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT – Portuguese Foundation for science and technology within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013.

The provision of ecosystem services (ES) relies upon the adequate functioning of multifunctional ecosystems and landscapes. Multifunctional ecosystems are prone to the emergence of ES bundles, trade-offs, and synergies due to various ecological and socio-ecological drivers. Dealing effectively with ES bundles, in general, and the interactions between ES, in particular, is crucial to achieve high degrees of sustainability and resilience by human societies. Yet, ES associations and interactions are difficult to assess, posing important challenges to ecologists, decision-makers, environmental planners, and managers. For this Special Section, we selected eight original contributions that were presented during the 5th International EcoSummit held in Montpellier (France) in the summer of 2016. Together, the studies presented herein, cover novel research, tools, and approaches focusing on overcoming the multiple challenges associated with the quantification and analysis of ES bundles, trade-offs, and synergies. These will certainly contribute to develop a better understanding and more comprehensive studies focusing on ES interactions within multifunctional ecosystems in the future.

This chapter describes the general process of drilling a hydrocarbon well and the unique and significant challenges encountered while drilling due to the harsh and challenging environment downhole. In addition to the high temperature, high pressure, highly acidic and corrosive environments encountered in deep wells, there are also the destructive, dynamic conditions, such as high torque, shock and vibration, created by the drill bit grinding and penetrating through rock formations, which makes drilling challenging. The chapter gives an insight into why logging and directional instruments are not only required to acquire measurements but also to provide an accurate representation of the well while drilling over extended periods of time, by surviving the downhole environment.

This article presents different use of the electric sense perception in the context of underwater robot navigation. To illustrate the developed navigation behaviours we will introduce a recently launched european project named subCULTron and will show some simulation and experimentation results. The project subCULTron aims at achieving long-term collective robot exploration and monitoring of underwater environments. The demonstration will take place in the lagoon of Venice, a large shallow embayment composed of salt turbid water that represents a challenging environment for underwater robots as common sensors like vision or acoustic are difficult to handle. To overcome turbidity and confinement problems our robots will be equipped with artificial electric sensors that will be used as the main sensorial modality for navigation. Electric sense is a bio-inspired sense that has been developed by several species of fish living in turbid and confined underwater environment. In this paper, many different robotic behaviours based on the electric field perception will be presented, in particular we will address reactive navigation, object/robots detection, and object localization and estimation.

Transparency in decision-making and a transparent administration are essential to a healthy and well-functioning democratic system. This applies both to the EU institutions themselves but also to how interest groups interact with the administration and the decision-making process. In the same way, maintaining high standards of ethics and preventing conflicts of interest are essential for reinforcing public confidence in the EU and its institutions. Public trust in the EU institutions risks being undermined if citizens perceive that there is not a clear separation between the administration and the private sector. The European Ombudsman is devoting increasing attention to these issues, to help ensure citizens are served by a transparent and well-functioning EU public administration. In the current challenging environment, it is all the more important for the EU administration to go the extra mile and ensure it is beyond reproach. This necessarily implies assessing the existing rules and norms applying to transparency and ethics in office and looking at how they can be strengthened. This has to be a core priority for the EU, and the Ombudsman will keep working with the other EU institutions and agencies to make sure they continue to make progress to this end.

The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) is the premier organization that accredits many engineering programs in the US. Assessment by ABET that Student Outcomes are achieved is a central part of its decision to accredit any program. The programs in engineering at Western Illinois University (WIU) place significant emphasis in the Capstone Senior Design course as part of the overall plans to seek accreditation. For example, it is the only course wherein all eleven student outcomes identified by ABET are formally assessed, thereby making it a comprehensive assessment. But assessment is challenging because there are many more variables than normal in a Capstone Senior Design course compared to traditional courses. This paper discusses the framework of assessment plans, schedules, rubrics, implementation, data collection, analysis, and continuous improvements in detail under this challenging environment in the Senior Design course at WIU.

Delay Tolerant Networks (DTN) have been widely studied and indicated as a possible solution to the challenging environment proposed by LEO satellite networking. Despite an abundance of research in the area, most works make simplifying assumptions on the inter-satellite crosslinks to ignore channel access schemes and their corresponding complications. In this work, we analyze the performance of satellite DTN’s when using TDMA channel sharing. We identify two ways of supplying MAC layer information to the DTN routing layer and show significant performance gains by each. Finally, we discuss the complexity trade-offs among the different information sharing schemes.

Plant Science Hundreds of millions of years ago, evolved descendants of aquatic plants began showing up on dry land. These newly terrestrialized species had to deal with increased ultraviolet light exposure, desiccation, and less accessible nutrients. Rich et al. show how mutualist fungi may have helped these nascent plant lineages with adaptation to their newly challenging environment (see the Perspective by Bouwmeester). Genetic and metabolic analysis of a liverwort as a representative of such plants suggests that the mutually beneficial exchange of nutrients with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi may have been a feature of these most early land plants. Science , abg0929, this issue p. [864][1]; see also abi8016, p. [789][2] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.abg0929 [2]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.abi8016

Palladium catalysed reactions are ubiquitous in synthetic organic chemistry in both organic solvents and aqueous buffers. The broad reactivity of palladium catalysis has drawn interest as a means to conduct orthogonal transformations in biological settings. Successful examples have been shown for protein modification, in vivo drug decaging and as palladium-protein biohybrid catalysts for selective catalysis. Biological media represents a challenging environment for palladium chemistry due to the presence of a multitude of chelators, catalyst poisons and a requirement for milder reaction conditions e.g. lower temperatures. This review looks to identify successful examples of palladium-catalysed reactions in the presence of proteins or cells and analyse solutions to help to overcome the challenges of working in biological systems.

Low interest rates and sluggish economic growth are not exactly ideal conditions for the financial services industry. Almost daily we are confronted with reports of inadequate capital bases, declining earnings, and layoffs at banks. But while many traditional retail banks are struggling with a business downturn, the direct bank market is enjoying steady and respectable growth despite a challenging environment. Dr. Schmidberger, Fully Authorized Representative at ING-DiBa Germany, offers us a glimpse behind the curtains of this direct bank. We will learn how data technology is used so that bank customers are (more) satisfied.

Training in both cervical and non-gynaecological cytology in the UK has never faced a more challenging environment. A national reconfiguration of cervical cytology services has focussed resources on large centres and damaged the traditional links and overlapping roles within non-gynaecological cytology. The UK is now at significant risk of falling behind most European countries in the use of non-gynaecological cytology. The UK currently has five training centres which are approved by the NHS Screening programme for training in cervical cytology; the planned introduction of HPV primary screening and the subsequent dramatic reduction in cervical cytology workload will increase pressure on the remaining training schools. Funding is variable across the country as is the degree of diversification that training schools have undertaken to try to ensure a viable future. It is vital for the future of cytology in the UK that the strong network of training schools remain to ensure the quality of the laboratory service as the UK moves towards HrHPV primary screening. There is no doubt that the training school roles will change and new technology embraced to deliver training fit for the changing role of cytology in healthcare but this will require funding and recognition of the vital role the training centres play in the delivery of high quality training in both cervical and non-gynaecological cytology.

Volunteer organizations operate in a challenging environment and their management practices toward volunteers have become increasingly influenced by the private sector. This case study explores the impact of brand heritage on the experience of volunteering in such managed environments. We use data from the U.K. Scouts to show that brand heritage has a positive bearing on the level of engagement volunteers experience and on their reported attitude to the way(s) in which they are managed within the volunteer organization. We then use these findings to establish the salience of brand heritage to both long established and recently formed organizations, extending current volunteer management theory; consequently, we suggest volunteer managers utilize the power of brand heritage through unlocking its ability to retain engaged and satisfied volunteers.

Trust in many government organizations is low, creating a challenging environment for communication during outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases, like Ebola. In a thematic analysis of 1,010 tweets and four Twitter chats during the 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak, we found that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention emphasized organizational competence, extant protocol, and facts about transmission to manage public fear. We argue that an emphasis on certainty in a rapidly changing situation leaves organizations vulnerable to charges of unpreparedness or obfuscation. Our results also speak to the contested definition of engagement online, particularly during health crises.

Patients with acute wounds often delay seeking medical assistance until an incapacitating infection has developed. When such patients come for help at a remote Christian clinic in northern Ghana, West Africa, the goals of care are to resolve and prevent a return of infection, decrease pain, enable an immediate return to normal activities, and facilitate healing. Because the local protocol of care, Edinburgh University Solution of Lime (EUSOL)-soaked gauze, did not meet these goals, the author tried using a variety of donated wound dressing regimens. Ultimately, polymeric membrane dressings (PMDs) were observed to meet patient care needs while also reducing clinic staff time and resources, and a PMD protocol of care was developed. Three (3) representative patients who presented with acute wounds and infection are described: a 20-year-old man with a hand abscess, a 16-year-old boy with a malleolus wound, and an approximately 20-year-old woman with an injection abscess, all otherwise relatively healthy, albeit undernourished. All 3 patients re- ceived oral antibiotics, their wounds were initially cleansed and debrided, and an appropriate configuration of either regular or silver-containing PMDs was applied to all exposed wound surfaces. Dressing changes were scheduled based upon the personalized plan of care. In all 3 patients, the pain-relieving properties of PMDs allowed resumption of activi- ties within 1 day of initiating treatment, the dressings' continuous wound cleansing system kept the wounds clean and free of infection despite the challenging environment, and the wounds healed steadily. Managing infected acute wounds with PMDs through complete wound closure was time efficient for clinic staff and met all 4 major patient goals of care. Randomized, controlled studies to compare wound and quality of life outcomes in patients whose infected wounds are managed with PMDs compared with those whose wounds are managed with other advanced dressings are warranted.

Mountains are progressively being invaded by highways for development and defence purposes. Environmental impact assessment (EIA) of highway projects in mountainous areas creates a challenging environment for data collection and impact prediction. Geographic information systems (GIS)-based EIA, using appropriate spatial analysis methods can sufficiently reduce the challenges created by mountain environments. The present study includes a review of articles, including research papers, government reports and EIA reports cutting across the inter-disciplinary nature of the topic. The paper identifies the spatial analysis methods, models and salient features of conducting GIS-based EIA of highway projects in mountainous areas. It is observed that spatial analysis of impacts of highway projects on the environmental attributes, especially air, noise, water and socio-economy in mountainous areas are largely unexplored.

This article examines the constantly growing club industry in Australia. Sociologically, the industry provides employment opportunities but at the same time has an impact on the growth of problem gambler numbers. Economically, Australia has prospered with the development of the club industry, primarily through raised revenue, and increased tourist numbers and employment. The industry faces a range of legislative and competitive market forces, which have significantly changed the operating environment, and there is no indication that these will abate in the foreseeable future. This article also investigates how the external leisure industry and advances in technology has affected Australian clubs. This study contributes to provide ideas of sustainable approaches for healthy development of the club industry in Australia and worldwide.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the innovative management strategies at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) during volatile post-merger years, in its quest for a sustainable future. It illustrates how the institution went from a place of relative uncertainty and volatility to a place of progression and stability by adapting to its environment and challenging circumstances. Design/methodology/approach – A holistic and inter-disciplinary approach is taken by the authors to demonstrate that organizational innovation and sustainability do not happen in isolation. The paper includes a literature review to contextualize the challenging environment in which the UJ was established and functions. A brief description of the strategic goals of the university is provided as a framework from within which the innovative management activities were launched. Data and information from the UJ’s stakeholder reports were used as measurement tools to determine the progress in reaching strategic targets. Findings – Innovation in higher education reported on in this paper is a result of many planning sessions, policy and procedure formulations, brainstorming and benchmarking exercises, performance reviews, management interventions and statistical analyses. A set of necessary and sufficient conditions for innovation in sustainable development in higher education include decisive leadership on strategic direction; regular, flexible and inclusive planning; regular culture climate surveys; constant monitoring of progress; and strategic agility that is essential to promote innovation among the entire workforce. Originality/value – The challenges, context and approaches provided in this paper serve as a frame of reference for other institutions of higher learning that face similar challenges in a dynamic, diverse and volatile environment.

Lactating females face energetic constraints absent in conspecifics and must compensate for higher energy requirements. Infant transport is the most energetically costly mammalian activity after lactation. Nonetheless, infant transport and mother-infant contact are seldom measured. The extreme seasonality characteristic of Madagascar coupled with lactation costs and infant transport is a trifold energetic challenge encountered by lemur mothers. We hypothesized that Coquerel's sifaka (Propithecus coquereli) mothers spend more time caring for infants during the early/earlier-mid lactation period, coinciding with the resource depletive austral winter, relative to later-mid/late lactation. We tested this hypothesis by measuring infant carrier identity, transport position, and frequency of mother-infant contact for 678 focal hours over two consecutive birth seasons from 1 to 26 weeks postnatal (N = 10 infants, N = 10 mothers, N = 19 adult males, N = 8 adult females) in Ankarafantsika National Park (ANP), Madagascar. Quantifying P. coquereli postnatal care strategies demonstrates how a species with a "slow" life history lives in an energetically challenging environment, thereby providing data on maternal energetic responses and infant development in an endangered strepsirrhine. Mothers were the primary infant transporters. Adult males and non-lactating females participated in infant transport, but for significantly less time. Infants spent significantly more time in the ventral transport position than dorsally or independently. Infants were still transported 26% of the time at 6.5 months postnatal. Infants initiated and broke bodily contact with mothers more frequently than mothers initiated and broke contact with infants. Infants were dependent on their mothers for longer durations than suggested by previous studies and carried dorsally until later ages than in other comparably sized wild lemurs. Am. J. Primatol. 78:646-658, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The growing need for more and more complicated underground urban systems has resulted to the development of a challenging environment for the setting up of effective evacuation procedure. The special circumstances and complexity, which characterize the underground spaces, as well as the severity of the consequences if an accident occurs, stimulated the research for different evacuation approaches in urban environments, in order to improve the efficiency of emergency evacuation and prevent crowd casualties in potential accidents, especially in the case of fire. The paper presents the most well respected standards, guidelines and regulations enforced worldwide, aiming to preserve the safeguarding of life and property against fire, explosion, and related hazards associated with developed subterranean spaces. Moreover, the evolution of underground evacuation approaches, from prescriptive methods to contemporary performance methods is displayed, followed by the examination of the approaches in crowd evacuation practices. Finally, the paper presents and analyses the factors being taken into account for planning the evacuation process, as illustrated through cases where modeling is conducted with special software codes.

A temperature compensated Relative Humidity (RH) sensor incorporating Fibre Bragg Gratings (FBGs) has been developed to be tested in extremely harsh gaseous acidic environment. One FBG is coated with moisture sensitive polymer while the other was used for temperature compensation. The resonance wavelengths were chosen to be within suitable spectral bandwidths for efficient interpretation of both RH and temperature. The performance of the sensor was evaluated for use in challenging environment by trialing the sensors for over a month in a waste sewerage tank with highly acidic gaseous environment. The sensitivity of the sensor to RH/temperature is calculated to be 5 pm/%RH and 9 pm/C respectively.

The consumption of various forms of plastics is a challenging environment protection issue. All forms of consumed plastic become waste and require large areas of land for storage because several tons of waste plastics cannot be fully recycled at once. The low biodegradability of plastic and the presence in large quantities of waste plastic negatively impact the environment. Previously, various studies were performed to identify safe and environmentally friendly methods for disposing of plastics. Recently, various forms of plastics have been incorporated in concrete to prevent the direct contact of plastics with the environment because concrete has a longer service life. However, this method is not a dominant method for disposing of waste plastic. This paper presents an overview of some published research regarding the use of waste plastic in concrete. The effects of waste plastic addition on the fresh, mechanical and thermal properties of concrete are also presented in this paper.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) have a profound influence on almost every aspect of plant biology. Here, we emphasize the fundamental, intimate relationships between light-driven reductant formation, ROS, and oxidative stress, together with compartment-specific differences in redox buffering and the perspectives for their analysis. Calculations of approximate H2 O2 concentrations in the peroxisomes are provided, and based on the likely values in other locations such as chloroplasts, we conclude that much of the H2 O2 detected in conventional in vitro assays is likely to be extracellular. Within the context of scant information on ROS perception mechanisms, we consider current knowledge, including possible parallels with emerging information on oxygen sensing. Although ROS can sometimes be signals for cell death, we consider that an equally important role is to transmit information from metabolism to allow appropriate cellular responses to developmental and environmental changes. Our discussion speculates on novel sensing mechanisms by which this could happen and how ROS could be counted by the cell, possibly as a means of monitoring metabolic flux. Throughout, we place emphasis on the positive effects of ROS, predicting that in the coming decades they will increasingly be defined as hallmarks of viability within a changing and challenging environment.

This reflection focuses on research conducted in ‘The Jungle’ in Calais, an informal camp of approximately 6000 refugees (Help Refugees, 2016). My self-designed qualitative study aimed to assess the availability and nature of mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) by interviewing service providers about their role in MHPSS. The research questioned whether MHPSS was evidence-based (Tol et al, 2011), what types of MHPSS was available, what service providers envisaged to be the most immediate needs, and barriers and enabling factors in MHPSS.

Prior research established effectuation and causation as two decision-making processes (behavioral logics) having distinct, context-dependent implications for firm performance. This study aims to b...

Extreme high temperatures in summer become more and more universal. However, the effects of high temperature on fitness and performance of different developmental stages in most biological control agents are very limited. The purpose of this work was to evaluate the effects of heat stress and exposure duration on the survival characteristics of immature and adult stages of Propylaea japonica, a dominant aphidophagous ladybeetle in China. Here, we investigated the survival characteristics of different developmental stages in P. japonica when subjecting to high temperatures, 35, 37, 39, 41 and 43 °C for exposure durations of 1, 2, 4 and 6 h, respectively, and 25 °C is the control. The results indicated that egg survival greatly decreased only at 43 °C for 4 h or 6 h, and had no significant difference from 25 to 41 °C for any exposure duration. The younger larvae were the most vulnerable stage with the minimum survival exposure to high temperature but older larvae showed stronger resistance to heat stress. The survivals of pupae and adult stages rapidly decreased only at 43 °C for exceeding 2 h. These results suggest that different developmental stages of P. japonica possess different degrees of heat resistance, which ensures its survival in summer. Moreover, according to the heat resistance of several natural enemy insects in our previous reports and the present results, a comprehensive utilization strategy of aphid biological control was constructed to restrain aphid damage and population growth in challenging environment.

Video data traffic is becoming dominant in mobile communication, especially when security and safety issues are top priority around the world today. Fast deployment of mobile surveillance capacity is proved to be in high demand in this challenging environment. Single wireless channel alone is not going to satisfy bandwidth requirement of video applications. In this paper, we examine the usage of channel aggregation on un-used VHF/UHF frequencies for big data application such as mobile video surveillance. By making use of unused VHF/UHF frequencies, we can also increase the usage efficiency of spectrum resources.

This chapter provides a general overview of control engineering in the pulp and paper industry in the mid 1990s. Paper products are manufactured primarily from wood in pulp and paper mills which are large, industrial complexes, each containing thousands of control loops. The manufacture of pulp and paper products represents a particularly challenging environment for the control engineer, as it is large in scale, highly nonlinear, highly stochastic, and dominated by time delays. Pulp and paper mills, like most of heavy industry, have been designed only in steady state. Regardless of the imperfections which might exist in the pulp and paper manufacturing environment, the marketplace demands ever greater product uniformity. Warnings and recommendations about control performance and control engineering skill have been reported in pulp and paper industry literature. Final paper product measurements include: basis weight, moisture content, caliper, smoothness, gloss, opacity, color, and brightness.

The United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Ocean Service (NOS) Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS) is responsible for maintenance and continued development of the National Water Level Observing Network (NWLON). NWLON consists of over 200 long-term stations that provide real-time water level observations throughout all U.S. coastal regions, including Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Ocean coasts, Gulf of Mexico, the Great Lakes, and Pacific and Caribbean island territories. One major challenge of maintaining and evolving NWLON is providing optimal spatial coverage to adequately resolve all water level processes of interest to a broad user group. Coastlines of the U.S. and its island territories cover a vast range of environment types resulting in many site specific NWLON system design and installation challenges. Meeting regional coverage needs involves establishing and maintaining a number of long-term stations where environmental conditions present significant challenges to delivery of high quality data and long-term station survivability. This paper provides an overview of CO-OPS existing long-term water level stations located in challenging environment types along with examples of latest measurement system research and development efforts to address future network expansion.

The emergency department is a challenging environment to practice medicine, primarily due to the pace and logistics of practicing emergency medicine. Cognitive errors and provider handoffs can lead to poor patient outcomes. By acknowledging and addressing cognitive errors, including premature closure, anchoring, and diagnosis momentum, we can potentially improve patient care. Additionally, by completing thorough, yet efficient sign-outs, as per The American College of Emergency Physicians' (ACEP) "Safer Sign Out Protocol," the chances of a poor outcome are further reduced. Below, a case of "migraine headache" is presented, highlighting cognitive errors and the risks associated with provider hand-offs in the emergency department.

Late-season paving is common and often performed in colder temperatures, which is the most challenging environment for attaining optimal in-place density and compaction. The in-place densit...

People with long-term experience of mental health problems can find it difficult to access higher education. The loss of confidence, social isolation and the stigma that often comes with mental ill health can make entering a university a daunting and intimidating experience. In this chapter, we consider Converge, a project which seeks to provide educational opportunities – across the campus of York St John University – to local people with mental health problems. The authors will suggest that the university environment and its people play a key role in supporting participants to learn, develop and progress. It is not medical or therapeutic interventions that make the difference, but learning within a socially valued and challenging environment.

This paper introduces small loop type antennas and their potential for use in UHF RFID far-field applications. They are typically known as ‘magnetic loops’ and an established antenna for HF applications. Here we evaluate their potential for use, both by simulation and measurement in the challenging environment of the oral cavity for patient health monitoring and assistive technologies.

The stereo vision system is one of the most important sensors for 3D reconstruction of the environment and scene understanding. It plays an essential role for the automated driving and ADAS applications. Although recently great progress has been made in this field both in the density and accuracy, the stereo vision in the challenging environment, such as rain, snow and low light conditions, are still open problems and need to be improved. To address this issue, we propose a novel real-time stereo vision algorithm, we transform the rough confidence score of the matching cost to the outlier probability rate and use it to guide the multi-path Viterbi method to estimate the disparity. Our proposed algorithm costs less than 40ms and improves the accuracy of stereo results in difficult scenarios. Real-world experiments show that the proposed method can significantly improve the disparity results in the various challenging environment.

This paper examines Ghana’s petroleum industry, its steady growth, and its initial challenges, such as the maritime border dispute and political interventions. Polarization between the two main political parties in Ghana, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has had important consequences for the industry. While an internal Ghanaian political dynamic explains particular traits and processes in the industry, the steady pace of growth, despite low prices, also reflects Ghana’s eagerness, across political party lines, to develop the industry in order to support general economic growth.