The Truth About Boys and Girls

On many measures American boys are achieving more than ever, but girls have improved their performance even faster. A careful look at the evidence shows the boy crisis hype is overblown and benefits neither boys nor girls

Urban nutrient balance for Bankok

To enhance agricultural sustainability, former linkages between agriculture and urban waste production should be reintroduced. Therefore, to explore the options for recycling of nutrients from mega-cities, a nutrient balance model was developed. The parameterization were established for the Bangkok Province and considers nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P). To model the food supply, an online database (FAOSTAT) estimating supply at country levels, was employed. It is argued that desaggregation to urban level is reasonable after adjustments for different economy in Bangkok than the average in Thailand. The balance shows that only a small fraction of nutrients are recovered, currently about 7 and 12% respectively, of the amount of N and P in the total food supply. On the other hand most (about 95%), of the total loss of N can be accounted for by elevated N levels in the Chao Phraya River from where also much (about 38%) of the loss of P can be explained. That is, in- and out-flows of N is almost found in balance but a huge amount of P must be accumulated somewhere. However the balance also shows that the Bangkok Province throws out into the river (and the sea) very huge quantities of plant nutrients that could be recovered and reused. For future research is it of particular interest to explore the maximum nutrient recovery fraction in different waste management systems

A Linear Dynamic Analysis of Vent Condensation Stability

Pressure suppression systems in boiling water reactors are designed to condense a large amount of steam very rapidly by injecting it into a pool of water. It transpires that such condensing flows are unstable and can lead to large oscillatory pressures on the walls of the containment system. This paper presents a theoretical model whose purpose is to attempt to understand why these flows are unstable and to extract the important parameters and frequencies pertaining to the instability. A simple linear dynamic model is constructed comprising linear transfer function for (i) the unsteady steam flow in the vent (ii) the condensation interface and (iii) the pool hydrodynamics. The analysis demonstrates the existence of both stable and unstable regions of operation defined by several non-dimensional parameters including the ratio of the steam flow rate to the effective thermal diffusivity in the water just downstream of the condensation interface and the frictional losses in the vent. Instability frequencies are in the vicinity of the vent acoustic frequencies or the pool manometer frequency depending on the conditions. Though the qualitative dynamic behavior of the model is consistent with the experimental observations, quantitative comparison is hindered by difficulties in accurately assessing the effective thermal diffusivity in the water. Nevertheless the model provides insight into the nature of the instability

AN ANALYSIS OF ALANA’S LOVE TO TALON IN NORMAN WINSKI’S NOVEL “THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER”

This analysis concerns with Norman Winski‟s novel “The Sword and The Sorcerer”. The writer of the thesis appreciates literature particularly novel. Novel as one of the literary works has purpose as entertainment. By reading literary works, someone will get enjoyment. Literary works express a series of human life happening such as problem, human‟s conflict of life, human struggle of life. Through this research, the writer focuses on love as the topic of the thesis. The purposes of the analysis are to know the kinds of love that was experienced of Alana as the main character, to know Alana‟s reasons falling in love, and to describe the process of Alana‟s love in Norman Winski‟s novel “The Sword and The Sorcerer”. This research uses qualitative descriptive research design because there is no treatment as it is in experimental research. This research just describes or interprets what exist with the condition and situation. The data are carefully examined for the extension of the study. In this analysis, the writer of this thesis uses the objective research approach because the author does not need to study the author‟s life, the background of the works, or the background of the society, but just analyze the work itself. The object of the study is all events, paragraphs, dialogues, and quotations that are related to Alana„s love on Norman Winski‟s novel “The Sword and The Sorcerer”. As the result, this analysis shows that “The Sword and The Sorcerer” has told about the kinds of the main character‟s love that was first love. The reasons why Alana was falling in love were: Parent‟s plan to marry Alana and Talon someday, Talon‟s appearances such as he was handsome and having strong and tall body, Talon‟s characteristics as Talon was brave and serious man, Saving Alana from the Klaws man who almost raped her, and Saving Alana‟s brother, Mikah, from Cromwels‟ jail. To reach her love, Alana had to experience love process that are children‟s feeling, their reunion after separated for long time, their separation when Talon rescuing Mikah, and at last their final reunion after Talon saving Alana and the Kingdom

Maternity care and 'Every Child Matters'

The first part of the chapter will provide an introduction to maternity services in the UK and why it is the foundation of ‘Every Child Matters’. It is the earliest healthcare intervention of all for the child and it is essential to get it right for babies and parents. The role of the key professionals involved with care provision will be explained as they may be unfamiliar to some readers. By using case studies as examples, the chapter will then explore how each of them contributes to addressing the key recommendations of Every Child Matters including the Common Assessment framework (CAF) and the strategic challenges of the Children’s Workforce. The final part of the chapter will focus on discussing future trends in maternity care with relation to Every Child Matters

Creating Structured PDF Files Using XML Templates

This paper describes a tool for recombining the logical structure from an XML document with the typeset appearance of the corresponding PDF document. The tool uses the XML representation as a template for the insertion of the logical structure into the existing PDF document, thereby creating a Structured/Tagged PDF. The addition of logical structure adds value to the PDF in three ways: the accessibility is improved (PDF screen readers for visually impaired users perform better), media options are enhanced (the ability to reflow PDF documents, using structure as a guide, makes PDF viable for use on hand-held devices) and the re-usability of the PDF documents benefits greatly from the presence of an XML-like structure tree to guide the process of text retrieval in reading order (e.g. when interfacing to XML applications and databases)

Solar influences on dynamical coupling between the stratosphere and troposphere

We use a simplified atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) to investigate the response of the lower atmosphere to thermal perturbations in the lower stratosphere. The results show that generic heating of the lower stratosphere tends to weaken the sub-tropical jets and the tropospheric mean meridional circulations. The positions of the jets, and the extent of the Hadley cells, respond to the distribution of the stratospheric heating, with low latitude heating displacing them poleward, and uniform heating displacing them equatorward. The patterns of response to the low latitude heating are similar to those found to be associated with solar variability in previous observational data analysis, and to the effects of varying solar UV radiation in sophisticated AGCMs. In order to investigate the chain of causality involved in converting the stratospheric thermal forcing to a tropospheric climate signal we conduct an experiment which uses an ensemble of model spin-ups to analyse the time development of the response to an applied stratospheric perturbation. We find that the initial effect of the change in static stability at the tropopause is to reduce the eddy momentum flux convergence in this region. This is followed by a vertical transfer of the momentum forcing anomaly by an anomalous mean circulation to the surface, where it is partly balanced by surface stress anomalies. The unbalanced part drives the evolution of the vertically integrated zonal flow. We conclude that solar heating of the stratosphere may produce changes in the circulation of the troposphere even without any direct forcing below the tropopause. We suggest that the impact of the stratospheric changes on wave propagation is key to the mechanisms involved

East & west : textiles and fashion in early modern Europe

What is the origin and essence of fashion? This question has engaged scholars of various disciplines over the past decades, most of whom approach this subject with a Western or European focus. This paper argues instead that Asia was also pivotal in the articulation of the fashion system in Europe. The long interaction between these regions of the world initiated profound changes that included the iteration of the early modem fashion system. Silk and later printed cotton textiles are uniquely important in world history as agents of new consumer tastes, and the embodiment of fashion in Europe. Particular attention is given to the process of the Europeanization of Asian textiles, and the consideration of the intellectual, commercial and aesthetic relationship between Europe and Asia, as the European printed industry developed. Fashion was not just created through the adoption and use of Asian goods, but it was also shaped by a culture in which print was central; and it was the printing of information-visual, as well as literate-along with printing as a productive process, which produced a type of fashionability that could be "read"